Windows by H. E. Ross

Windows by H. E. Ross

I ARRIVAL

 Ahead was a breakwater. Stone, rock and the occasional name of a cemetery resident made way for a housing project thought up in some other town. It was cold and wet, overcast grey with green rising seas swelling down the tube of the entrance way. Nothing was nice, even the seas broke ragged and without logic. The wind was the only constant, a whining forty plus, a chilling freeze.

Double reefed main and a small staysail brought him over forty hours in cold mountains of liquid air. His eyelids rose creaking, nothing would ever be the same, each creak echoed. He’d sell this fucking bitch where the still water ran softly passed a steady dock affixed to precious land.

He tried, without putting much effort behind it, to remember warm tropical trades and light flecked clear seas. He did not have much energy to put much effort behind anything except stepping off this motha-fucking witch of a boat. Some unreal postcard picture of some Caribbean sunset flickered on and off. He had to get back and stay in the present. He noticed with a start that his eyes were closed and he was staring at blackness. More from the acceleration down a dumping swell than through his failing will, the eyelids opened again to reveal grey and foaming white and salt burning and green wet rushing. The breakwater stood solid beating off the crashing and swirling just to his sides. One long wall, one rounded point, a bell somewhere, another somewhere else.

“Got-ta pull it up.” He mumbled to the compass and wheel. “Gotta¼ pull it together¼ hamburgers and Coca Cola and , and¼” He pulled the wheel spokes over forcing some sea aside to regain the middle of the channel.

The seas flattened and cleared the grey and green and white, changing imperceptibly into a chalky blue, then a clean green blue. He was plane sailing now with a town’s docks and small homes in view and people walking, driving, sitting and standing. A restaurant, elevated on pilings, hove into view. Somebody pointed out at him. A woman and a man walking, gesturing toward him, the man stared, smirked, shook his head saying something to her. They turned and walked into a low building advertising captured seals.

Ahead were several boats anchored and moored peacefully as though nature was not screaming on the other side of the breakwater and sand shoal. The sun even had the nerve to be shining on the protected side of the sea. It was too much, the sailor spat into silky rushing by waters.

With a grunt to agree with his eye for a place to set anchor, the weary waterman pulled his mainsail in tight, then the staysail, letting the wheel turn to round up the cutter and put her as in irons, still in the water. As was his practice he lowered the gaffed main and as usual the staysail backed itself around on a return course toward the entrance. Feeling bone weary he untied the retaining lanyard, cleared the hawse-pipe and dumped the CQR anchor over the side letting the chain stream aft until the hook caught slowing the cutter’s progress. He belayed and secured the anchor rode, watching the land turn round as the staysail started to flutter. After loosening the busy sail to a clumped stillness, he sat down heavily on the clump of sailcloth to look at the bowsprit pointing to a low sand shoal with dots of green vegetation bright snowy egrets watching the cutter’s sailor.

He awoke with the sun in his eyes. The clothing under the foul weather gear, that never felt warm enough outside, was soaked in his sweat. He looked anxiously about only to find the anchor holding him with the bow pointing toward the shoal, and the egrets were now paying him no attention in their quest for shell fish or whatever they were pecking around after. The buildings of the town were softer in shape then he remembered upon entry. He did not remember logging in the anchor drop. He could not remember going back to the cockpit after dousing the staysail. He looked down at the sail he was sitting on and with another shock remembered that he had fallen asleep. He looked around again: the bowsprit, sand horizon, egrets, still water, other anchored boats, people on the boardwalk, soft lit buildings. He looked up the sails were down, the main dropped sloppily over the main cabin, the gaff waved lazily with the soft swell. The sun blazed from the West. He was truly at anchor and he breathed heavily until a smile formed itself, then he exhaled and laughed aloud twice.

After clearing up the sail mess and logging in his approximate anchoring (with the unexpected nap included) he made a tired attempt at straightening up the cabin and washing down the decks. Then the sailor set a 35-pound Danforth onto the anchor rode and let out another fifty feet or so of chain.

The sailor sat alone in the cockpit at sunset sipping a cup of strong black tea and nibbling on a peanut butter sandwich. His eyes, though strained to stare, sparkled with the last light of day.

II THE BAR

It was the kind of rain that people ran through to avoid. Hard drops of cold wet that went through street clothes and what is called rainwear. The worst thing about the cold breezy rain was the darkness of night. There is nothing worse, in the normal course of life, that nature gives us then a cold, windy rainy night¼ unless you were in front of a fireplace looking over at a window at what you do not have to be in¼ then, there are fewer pleasures greater.

The sailor sat at a fireplace on a wooden backed bench with his legs stretched in front, boots on their sides, socks steaming on his happy feet. He sipped slowly at his third brandy in a channel front bar called the Boatswain’s Chair.

There were not many people in the bar maybe because of the early hour or the middle day of the week or the rain or the bar itself or some other reason that the sailor did not feel like going on about because he decided he ‘didn’t know, didn’t ask nobody, didn’t care and didn’t want to go into it any further’. The fire’s crackling and fusing green here and there was enough.

He could see ‘Staraker’’s anchor light from where he sat without the slightest strain of neck. He could hear the cold in the rain which would send a chill down his chest or back every so often. He would like to tell somebody about the storm leg of his coastal voyage. He looked over and around at the people in the bar.

The place itself was wall to wall nautical memorabilia on dark wood with subdued lighting. Watching an elevated television at the end of a long copper and polished oak bar was the bartender and two male customers. The bartender sported a handlebar moustache and wore a tam o’shanter with a plaid wool shirt, reds mainly. The two customers, whose backs faced the fireplace, both wore sports coats in tweed, one with leather elbows. The volume was low but there was some sort of soap opera playing.

At a table against the far wall was a couple. They sat across from each other and appeared very seriously discussing something. The two were dressed casually in wool and jeans. Raincoats hang at a hat rack near the front door. The sliding windows from which ‘Staraker’ could be seen were closed.. He studied the bartender and the two watching the soap opera and sighed. That was not the type of listener he wanted for his tale. Soap operas in a bar on a squalling night? What had the world come to? he asked the fire and brandy.

‘Hey.’ Somebody called, “hey, you at the fire..”

The sailor turned.

“Yeah, you.” the bartender was smiling warmly. “We made some hot dogs here an’ wondered if ya wanted one¼ or two?”

The sailor smiled back, brightening his dark complexion and greying beard with teeth. He stood, wavered a bit from the still deck and moving brandy, and sauntered over to the bar near the other two customers.

“I appreciate it fellas, thanks.” He nodded to the two men, who smiled in friendliness in return, then looked back at the television as the commercial ended.

One of the two spoke to the sailor with a side of his hot dog full mouth, never taking his eyes from the colour screen.

“Jake’s got Lucy pregnant. She just told Hank. He’s called a mob friend who’s making a contract bid.”

“Hunh?” the sailor mumbled, unheard.

He looked up at the pretty actors, each trying to out-drama the other, looked at the wieners in the platter steaming.

“What do I do, just¼

“Shh.” said the nearest one to him.

“Shh¼” said the furthest.

“Shh.” said the bartender.

The sailor looked back up at the actors and actresses trying to figure out by the music what was important to hear from the other things they were saying. He could not concentrate on the drama unfolding, so he turned and picked up a bun from another platter. A small stack of paper plates stood between the buns and the mustard, which he thought was a strange arrangement. He reached over picked up a plate and placed his bun in the centre of it. Then he took a step picked up the plastic mustard barrel and squeezed liquid then mustard onto the opened bun. He looked around and there on the other side of the hot dogs was a bi-partitioned dish containing relish and chopped onions. He walked over and placed a hot dog onto the bun giving it a couple of rotations to get the mustard covering all sides. He spooned some relish on one side of the wiener and some onions on the other. It looked right. He looked up at the television, at the others, at the hot dog and bit. It was juicy, sweet and wonderful. He chewed and chewed and bit and chewed and bit and it was gone.

The bartender and the two men with half drained draft mugs sitting solidly on the counter laughed at something from the screen and mumbled to each other about it. The guy closest to the sailor turned smiling, shook his head in reference to the soap opera and turned back to the screen.

“So¼Lucy¼” the pretty actor with the neatly trimmed beard said looking down at his cup in the expensive looking restaurant. “What are we¼ I guess I should say¼what are you¼”

The sailor fixed himself another hot dog, went over to the fire place and sat back to watch the fire, eat his hot dog and drink his brandy.

“Hey.” The bartender’s deep voice called. “Hey buddy, sorry we didn’t pay much attention¼From The Same Block is our YUTD here and we get into the Zone, ya know. Come on over and get one these hot dogs, there from Sellach’s, prime beef and lean pork with no filler or chemicals, straight as a snow draw¼”

The two men turned to look at him, both smiling as if to a fool.

They could tell that the sailor was trying to be polite and act as though he knew what they were talking about. They could tell he must be from outer space or shy because he was Black or just ignorant or something. The sailor could see that they could tell these things.

The one who had been closest to him raised his hand to bring the room to order, placed a very paternal smile upon his well shaved pudgy face.

“YUTD is Young Urban Television Drama and it’s straight as a snow draw, draw like drawing a line¼coke?”

“Oh, “ the sailor said, “oh.. coke.. line, right.”

“Where ya from, buddy?” the bartender smiled.

“Well, just now from that gale out there.”

They all looked in the direction the sailor’s thumb indicated, then turned to the television as the commercial ended.

The sailor bit and chewed studying their backs. When he finished, he rose, went over and made himself another hot dog. He looked at the television and the two serious talkers and then over to welcoming fire. His socks felt dry now, a little hard on the bottoms but comfortable. He went back to the bench and ate the hot dog.

‘The story probably wouldn’t interest them anyway¼’ he thought, eyes sparkling in the fire’s wilderness. ‘no blood, well except that leaving my fingertips cuz of the cold, no sex¼except the language I used on my bitch, my Staraker’. He looked out at the anchor light and smiled softly to himself. ‘I shouldn’t call her that, she brought me through it with both our heads above the water, didn’t she? She’s more a lady than the virgin Queens of any England. She’s a beaut when ya sit back and look at ‘er. And real she is too, not like these idiots performing television cancer. He looked at his hands empty of hot dog and brandy. They were swollen, he felt them, caressed them without any responding feeling. ‘ I ought-ta take care of my hands better. Got gloves, always forgets ta use ‘em. Gotta use my gloves, take care theses poor things.’ He rubbed the two hand knuckles of his right hand where the jib sheet block almost smashed through.

Next, his right hand went to his beard, then the side of his head where the jib sheet block left a nice sized bump. ‘Oughta modernise and burn that goddamn block, it’s always

the starboard sheet block that’s got it in for me, knew it the day I bought that fine vessel. Knew she’d have a kink or two and I eyed that block because it looked like it was eyein’ me¼Gonna modernise the rig a bit, burn that goddamn block.’

Involuntarily, he felt his left shoulder where the jib sheet block left an ache from years past. ‘Gonna get rid of that goddamn block the minute I get back aboard. Who the hell that damn block think it is, I’m the master and mate of my own vessel and I’d have order aboard or by damn¼’ He looked round to see if he’d been talking aloud but everybody was still consumed in television and all three were nodding to the serious expressions on the screen actors’ faces.

He yawned glancing down at the empty glass and settling embers and empty paper plate. He blinked heavily, reached down and put on his boots. The sailor pulled his foul weather jacket on, buttoning and zipping it up to the collar bone. He looked over and out at the rain raking the window next to the door and thought what a lovely night for a walk. He pulled his hood up over his watch capped head, opened the door and sauntered out into the night, closing the door behind him.

The bartender looked over as the door opened, watched as the man exited and closed the door.

“Hey, that Black guy left.” he said to the others.

“Shh.” responded one.

“At the best part¼” said the one who had spoken to the sailor.” takes all kinds.”

They all chuckled as Lucy was shot by the contract hit man.

III THE CONTRACT

“Now let me get this straight,” the sailor counted his fingers, “first, you want to charter my cutter¼ and hire me as skipper¼and take a ride nowhere in particular, just into a storm.” He stopped counting and looked up into her eyes. “Any storm.”

“Yes, and ..” she began.

“Wait, I’m not through countin’” he resumed holding the four fingers up, then hooked his right index onto his left thumb. “Then, you’re gonna pay me a bonus if we get somethin’ real nasty, like a hurricane,..or a typhoon.”

“Yes, and..”

“Wait, ma’am.” He grimaced and looked again into her green eyes. “You’re a good lookin’ woman, excuse the bit of chauvinism but if I see a good lookin’ schooner I’d put a name and description to it, too, it’s my habit, bein’ alone so much probably. Look, have you ever been in a storm on a small boat?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” he looked down at the palm of his hand. “Then, why do you want to go back out into another one?”

“:Well, I was young and I didn’t really appreciate the forces involved, I just didn’t like the discomfort.”

“Discomfort?”

“Yes. The tossing about, you know, like everybody seasick, nobody to talk to. Everything was pretty much a shambles, even the crew were sick, but I wasn’t. I’ve never been seasick.”

“No?”

“No, never.”

“What was this, a charter boat, a square rigger cruise or somethin’? How many were in this seasick crew?”

“I don’t know how many, but, no¼it was when my parents took us across the North Sea from Newcastle to Bergen, Norway aboard the ferry..”

“You talkin’ about a two-hundred-foot steamship as a little boat? Wait, I think you’ve got to re-juggle your dimensions a bit here, my dear.”

“Well, the point is that I am working on a novel, my third by the way, and one part takes place on board a small sailing yacht and the yacht gets caught in a storm, so..”

“You thought you’d hire some bloody idiot to take you out into a storm so that you can really get into it, really get into what forces will be encountered, what feelings will surface, and all that crud, right?”

“Yes, very close.”

He sat back in the chair and looked over at the two people playing quarter pool. He turned back to her.

“Look, why don’t you save your money and I’ll give you some storm stories for free, included will be forces encountered, feelings revealed, and all that crud.”

She smiled sweetly at him. “I’m sure, Mr. Macy, that you’ve got a lot of storm stories to tell¼but, well, I’m a writer not a parrot.

“Not a parrot.” The sailor smiled at that, “No, I assure you that I had no intention of referring to you as a parrot, although¼ writers tend to imitate life a bit, but we won’t go into that. Look, the point is..”

“Wait, let’s go into that¼ I am a novelist sure, that’s fiction, sure, but I paid my dues. I covered inner cities’ violence, outer cities’ anguish. I covered politics and tourism, fashion and sports. I..”

“Wait,” he interrupted, “actually the novelist part I would respect as more real than the journalism part.”

 “Me too.”

 They looked at each other to acknowledge agreement on this point.

 “We agreed on something.” He said.

 “Hey, yeah.” She agreed.

 “And again.” He said.

 “We could do this all day¼” she nodded to the window, then to him, “and all night¼in that storm.”

He looked out through the splattered windows’ tutor shapes. Darkness and the reflection of a distant streetlamp was what he saw.

 “Five hundred dollars for a one-night stand.” She smiled alluringly.

 “Not exactly a bedtime escapade.”

 “I can take it.” She looked back out the windows.

 “Look, I just came outta that. I need some sleep, overhaul the gear, get cleaned up, ya know.”

“Hey, this low is not moving, according to a new friend at the airport weather department. I’ll meet you at Cheong Tzu’s dock tomorrow at eleven.”

“Cheong Tzu? Eleven AM or PM?”

“AM. Cheong Tzu’s is that long pier that you are anchored off.”

“Oh. Well, that’s where my chariot awaits presently.” He finished the last of his fourth brandy, picked up his foul weather jacket and slid into it.

“Tomorrow?’ One of her two fists clutching a thumb.

He buttoned and zipped the jacket to the collarbone, then stared at her, his beard parted a bit into a soft skeptical smile.

“No jewelry.”

“What?”

“No jewelry: rings; earrings; necklaces.” He lifted her ring bare hands, turning them to examine both sides. “You know anything at all about sailing?”

 “Yeah, I have a 21-foot sloop down at the marina.”

 “Ya couldn’t tell it. Your hands are soft as cashmere. You got gloves?”

 “Yes, of course.” She was anxious. “Cashmere? You’ll take me?”

 “I’ll sleep on it. Your boat plastic?”

 “Yes, fibre-glass¼it’s a..”

“Figures.” He turned and walked to the door, opened it and went out into the blustery rain. The door closed softly behind him.

She chewed her lip, looking around the bar. She could not see the slightest thing of interest, so she finished her coffee and brandy, combed her hair and left the place.

IV DEPARTURE

The wind ran out of rain a little after daybreak. The wavelets danced across the sheltered bay in dainty imitation of the grey-backs rolling northward outside. The wind inside the shelter was nothing more than a strong breeze after being blocked by a series of grand rounded boulders that marched up the coastline.

A windy morning after a stormy night is a catastrophe to behold aboard a sailing vessel. Belowdecks is safe, comfortable, homey. On deck is wet, slippery, messy, chilly, with sails’ ends drooping and dripping and chips of wood in every crevice showing and dust turned to mud anywhere the eye wanders. To meticulous people, which cruising sailors (in their own ways) tend to be, a sailing vessel after a wet night at anchor is like somebody dumped a giant ashtray over the whole boat, then knocked a drink over the top of that. It is a discouraging sight to greet one after the homey potbelly toasting the toes and fingertips.

Macy, the sailor, surveyed the greyness all about and the wet sloth of his cutter from the hatchway of the main cabin. He spit some coffee grounds to leeward and drank heartily of the liquid hoping to boost his morale about keeping his commitment to go sail out into this storm.

The price was right, the cutter tight, he was the only weak point and after a full nights sleep it was only his will that was lacking.

“I’m no adventurer.” he said to the steaming coffee mug with the painting of Popeye winking back at him. ”Life’s adventure enough, no need going looking for it. On the other hand, sailing’s my job and this storm sailing could definitely be called business.”

Popeye said nothing audible but Macy nodded back in agreement, placed the mug in its nook inside the hatchway and began to clean up the mess above deck.

She parked her Cherokee at the foot of Cheong Tzu’s pier in a light blustering drizzle. Her foul weather gear had a used look but was clean. He could never understand where the dirt came from on wooden or steel boats. Everybody he knew aboard a wooden or steel boat had dirty foul weathers but the plastic and aluminum boat sailors were always so damn clean. The plastic boaters were always cleaning their boats, that would explain them to some extent but the aluminum sailors were just like the rest of us, he thought, they had no excuse for being so clean.

They were back onboard with her gear and the dinghy stowed, sitting in the boom tented cockpit when the cabin clock struck eleven.

“You sure you want to do this?”

“Does the Pope shit holy turds?”

The light rain and strong breeze continued as Macy pulled up the double reefed mainsail, put the diesel in gear and worked up the anchor. When the anchor was aboard and secure he set the peak, rounded off toward the entrance and put the engine into forward gear and set the throttle full. They met one tumbling sea at the mouth of the entrance which smothered the bow and pushed the stern up so that the propeller ran free for a few seconds.

Gaining open ocean the seas ran in great columns that reached infinitely into the horizon. The grey and spume barely contrasted the weak green of free water.

Macy went forward and pulled up the smallest staysail. From the cockpit he put the engine in neutral and set a course that would beam reach them out and back by adjusting the sails. He gave Margo the wheel and the course, then killed the engine’s vibration by the pull of a button that suffocated its inner workings.

“Wheel’s no problem?” he asked her.

She looked up from the compass, curls blown wavy peaking from under a pink watch cap. “Naw¼at first, now it’s reverse of the tiller is all.” She corrected and recorrected. “I’ve just got to forget the tiller is all.”

They burst through the tops of the cross fetch sliding down the long backs of an almost calm wildness. Spray shot up, curled back on itself, lay back down and slid alongside aft as bubbling spume.

Her eyes were excited, wide. She looked like a kid, he thought, smiling softly at her appreciations.

“Wait ‘til the storm gets a grip on us. Keep your energy, you’ll need it, ma’am.”

“Margo, please¼” she darted her eyes at him then back to the compass. “and what’s your full name?”

“Macy’s good ‘nuff.”

“Just for curiosity’s sake.”

“David James Macy.”

“Nothing wrong with that?”

“Naw¼ Why should there be?”

“Cuz¼ people usually¼ well, when you only use your last name it’s usually because you don’t like.. she corrected, then recorrected, interrupting her train of thought.

He looked ahead to windward seeing the sea tops flattening and the gray green darken. He looked up at the sails and figured this amount of sail area would do for now. He looked to the mast and the storm-sails’ lashed tops in front of the cabin trunk.

“You’re about to get hit by a freight train, see over there, the flatter seas and dark ripples?”

“Yes, I see them. That’s more wind.”

“When it hits, just head up a bit to ease the shock on the rigging then fall back off to course.”

“Okay.”

“Okay what?”

“Head up when it hits, then off, back on course. You want me to repeat orders, like in sailing lessons?”

“Sailing is a lesson. Yes, always repeat. That way I know you understand.”

“Okay.”

The storm had started way to the south where a combination of low pressure and high pressure systems and warm air and cold air systems smoothly revolved about each other. A baby breeze was born that retained traces of all the characteristics of its parents. It moved north following its high pressure with its low. It stayed at just the right height, for quick lateral movement, between cold and warm temperature levels. It slipped north maturing as a grand wheel, gaining in power and strength, then with its revolving circle stretched wide, its freedom is bunted by a mountainous protuberance of land mass. The mature storm has stopped to consider going around or through this disturbance for it has never had to puzzle out a dilemma. Maybe it never will.

Macy was on his knees. The sea hit again. His fingers fumbled with the clove hitch, the end of the line looped then straightened on the sloshed deck. The halyard loosed, the peak loosed, the sail slid down easily, pressured to one side by solid wind and wet.

Back to the wind, Macy rose, thighs pressed against the boom, he slid, side stepped and reached over to pull the gaff spar on top of the boom, sealing off the air from the sail like closed lips. Midway down the boom he tied the two spars together then a sea pushed him hard onto them. Eventually he gathered the sail in a neat roll that tucked itself snuggly between boom and gaff.

The storm trysail sheet is pulled through its sheave at the boom’s end and stop knotted. The head of the strong sail is attached to its own halyard and the tack secured to the gooseneck. The sail is raised rapidly and sheeted in rapidly, still on a beam reach.

The motion of the boat quieted down, pressed only slightly by wind, ore by wave action. He nodded the question to her if she was all right; she responded with her own nod. He went forward and bagged the tied off staysail, then secured the man with more lanyards

Macy was tired. His arms ached. He was cold. He was thirsty. It was hot inside the foul weathers. The seas were grey forever, piling upon themselves in small pyramids yet with some deliberate semblance of order. It was grand to be at sea, he thought, holding on tightly to the main boom and gaff with a looped arm.. The cutter jerked to a cross swell, his head banged against the belayed gaff. He smelled, then tasted blood. He did not feel any pains, though when he reached up to his nose with his fingers he found they were covered with blood. A stray sea flew across ‘Staraker’ stinging his nose, washing his face. He laughed aloud then found Margo’s eyes on him. He laughed until she laughed.

“It’s great” he yelled to her “to feel the forces.” He laughed.

“I told ya so, I told ya so¼” she yelled, her words carried away by the breeze.

Later, the wind increased, bringing a darkened sky and flatter seas. They sped outward bound toward a faded horizon and scudding clouds. The seas were on the quarter, the speed jumped between nine and twelve knots. The topsail canvas stretched itself thin like wet steel. Macy was at the wheel, the novelist was forward safety belted to the anchor rode bitts and straddling the bowsprit. He looked from time to time at her hooded yellow wind-blown back. He knew she was happy. He felt good also, even to the extent of considering giving her back her money. Realistically, he decided, he would at least take her out to dinner at a fine place with his payment.

It was nice, he thought, to have company that didn’t talk a lot and appreciated what he appreciated. He wondered what she would be like when the thrill was more subtle, like in the Caribbean where it was warm and soft, or the Aegean where the dolphins rubbed your feet.

Later after he gave her back the helm, he went below, put some coal in the heating stove, a light to the cooking stove and heated some coffee. Then, he made four peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on a plate and put a tall Crocker mug on the top step of the companionway ladder.

Macy stumbled up the ladder with the motion of the boat balancing the thermos and plateful of sandwiches. He placed the plate, then thermos aside the leeward coaming then fished the mug and his Popeye mug from the cabin and gained the cockpit deck. She was smiling in a way that seemed happy and anxious.

“How are you doing?” he yelled to her above the whistling wind.

She nodded affirmatively, handling the wheel with light movements now. He poured the mug half full and handed it to her. She looked a little confused, so he smiled and poured her coffee into his mug, took a sandwich from the plate and slid over to the front of the wheel.

“Go ‘head and eat.” He inclined his head toward the food.

She, in turn, looked at the wheel, then slid off the side of the wheel-box and crawled to the plate and mug. Macy caught the wheel’s spokes with his thigh, balanced himself, then mounted the low box to steer with is right foot.

She was laughing when he finally looked over at her, crushed bread mixed with jelly and peanut butter framed by her wet lips and peanut buttered teeth. It took him a second to figure that it was because of his steering with his foot that she was laughing, he thought it was because of her eating mess. He could have turned on the automatic pilot to give her really something to laugh about but decided to let her feel it all.

The motion was regular, ‘Staraker’ was firmly grooved, moving with a calm, deliberate aggressive tilt. She pushed the wrong seas away, the favourable ones joined her as in chorus that climaxed with a gentle gurgling astern.

The coffee was better this time, he thought, just enough sugar to bring the bitterness to a pleasing taste. She had finished her two sandwiches in the time he had finished half of his. He motioned to her, with a paternal smile, to finish the last sandwich. She shook her head, pointing to him. He shook his head showing her his half sandwich. She smiled, tenderly taking up the breads and ate hungrily and happily watched the grey-backs run off the starboard bow.

About six, the sun set somewhere in the grey and the wind increased its strength until it whistled a high note in the rigging. Darkness slowly obscured light and the cold nibbled away any excitement about the event. Macy switched on the running lights and “in case somebody else was insane enough to be out in this” , and filled two thermos bottles with hot sugary coffee. He made eight ham and cheese sandwiches, omitting tomatoes and including thick slices of onion.

“About four years ago,” Macy began half yelling over the din, sitting upwind of Margo. “ I was enroute from Monty Bay to Georgetown, Grand Cayman and got caught in a calm that lasted long enough for a hurricane to catch up with me. That was when we didn’t have an engine aboard.”

She smiled at him. “Trapped audience, eh?”

“Hey,” he smiled back. “I just thought a different angle to a storm might give you a little perspective, ya know.”

“Thanks Macy, but I think this one’s enough perspective for the time being. Later, ashore maybe, I’d like to hear all of your stories.”

“All?” Macy puzzled. “Hey, that’s take some time.”

“You goin’ somewhere?”

“Well, actually been thinking about letting the sun thaw me out again, maybe permanently this time.”

“Where?”

“Well, actually, I don’t know. That’s one thing about carrying your home around with you, you can see where it is, at what time you fit in.”

“Just following the sun.”

“Naw, nothing like that. There are a couple of places that keep coming back to my memory as candidates for settling in..”

“Where?”

He smiled at her. “Where? Where would you like to be? Climate, terrain, people, setting, ya know, that perfect place?”

She looked at the course, at the telltales in the red lighted shrouds, thinking.

“Actually, in this novel, Moonray,..”

“Moonray?” Macy interrupted.

“That’s the name of the novel, at least up to this point.” She yelled.

“Okay, go on, perfect place.” He yelled back.

“The perfect place is an island I conjured up in Moonray. High mountains, cool at the tops, tropical beneath. Waterfalls. White sand beaches. Oriental rock formations with crashing seas. Happy sun bronzed people. Clear water. Plenty of animals, birds, fish, wild boar, that kind of thing.”

 He was smiling and nodding, looking around the dark invisible horizon.

“Breeze letting up a bit.”

“Storm’s over?” she yelled.

“Breeze letting up a bit.”

“Does that mean..”

“It means only for the moment the breeze is letting up a bit.”

She nodded, “Good, I was afraid that was all of it.”

He shook his head. “Not dramatic enough for ya, hunh?”

“Dramatic? Oh yes, but I was hoping for more adventure, things unexpected¼”

“Oh.” He considered the point. “You wanted me to reef¼ after the mast blew down, and change sails swimming..”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, that’s why we’ve got fiction and fact. I don’t read much fiction at sea.”

“Maybe that’s it, well, actually two things. One, that you are too good a sailor and two,

that the fantasy of actual reality is fulfilling at sea after a certain period of time for acculturation.”

“Sea legs.”

“What ?”

“Sea legs, learning to walk at sea.”

“Never really thought about the term, always thought about not getting seasick.”

“That’s sea legs, too.”

“What do you do at sea when you’re out for a week or more?’

“Sail.”

“Yes, but what else? Aren’t you bored?”

“Yeah. And satisfied. And lazy. And busy. And lost. And found. I talk to this fuckin’ bitch a lot, she’s a comfort. We’ve resolved the problems of the world a hundred times, usually in the dark.”

“You really think of the boat as a person.”

“No. As an entity. As a living force, sort of buddhistic, really, ya know, all things are part of a whole. She is a bit of a tree, a bit of minerals, a bit of animal, a bit of sea, a bit of air, a lot of my blood, sweat and tears and I’m sure she took a lot of those three from her previous owners and maintains all those spirits. But, she’s got a lot of sea miles past her keel and tasted the waters of a lot of ports.”

“How old is ‘Staraker’?”

“Built in Maldon, England in 1928 as a fisherman’s yacht, can you imagine the guy didn’t have enough of the salt that his pleasure was sailing too.”

“Where have you been with her?”

“Everywhere I’ve wanted to go. Had a few difficulties, never her fault really, and now that I’ve got that engine in her we’ll have even fewer difficulties.”

“You didn’t have an engine?”

“No, not for the first eight years.”

“How long have you had her?”

“Twelve years in April.”

“You had the engine¼ for four years.”

“No, I had another one but it quit on me in the entrance to a coral lagoon off the Bay Islands, Honduras, almost wrecked the bitch, luckily, I don’t trust the damn things and had my mainsail up and moment enough to get me just passed the last finger before she fell off. I threw the thing into the lagoon and swore never a engine again, but, you know, it’s nice to just motor over two hundred yards and be there in a few minutes, and to have a hot pressurised shower and to have a self-steerer, and¼”

“You have a self-steering device?”

“Yeah, that contraption on the wheel.”

“This?”

“Yeah.”

“And I’ve been steering when I could have helped you?”

“You could have helped me without the self-steerer, but it’s better to conserve your energy and to get the feel of the boat. No place better to get the feel than steering, so..”

In the dark the wind and sea tend to exaggerate themselves, the former increasing in ferocity, the latter in size and force. It was a phenomenon that Macy never lost the marvel of. There was something else about sailing in storms that amazed the sailor time and again and that was the matter-of-fact simplicity of the event. No matter what emotions were finding vent, and in his first storm at sea he did shit on himself, the storm was a constant. It went on until it stopped.

Macy looked out at the darknesses, the blacks, the blues, the charcoals, the green reflections nearby from the navigation light. He looked out from the leeward coaming, his chin resting on his foul weathered arm. A fireplace in a dry house would be nice, he thought, but what would be there aside from the fireplace and dry house. Bills. Bills would be there and lifestyle and probably somehow television and living for some other time or place would be there.

Macy looked back over to Margo. Her face wet, flattened curls, bloody pinked by the red compass light. Intense features, sharply shadowed and reversed in bottom light. Star dots of eyes in cheek shadowed sockets. Women were strangers to Macy, every woman Jacquelyn of them. So much cleverness, but, he thought turning back to the seascape, men are pretty boring to be around. Maybe they need it, the intrigue, to give immediate reason to life.

He looked down at the rushing by water sparkling smooth with ruffles of boat interferences. Suzanne came through the waters again to gain his gaze. He smirked at the mind image but kept it. Fifteen years back. Fifteen years back.

Clear light, rock island, Grecian harsh light. The vacation he owed himself, chartering a yacht in the Aegean. Lazing, eating, drinking, womanising (or at least flirting). Macy had fallen into a decorative house painting business in San Francisco and put everything into it for seven years. Then he noticed everybody else was living for things other than work and decided upon the ultimate vacation for himself. He had not counted on getting hooked on sailing, the sailing itself. There was a cleanness, like the perfection of applying a line of paint that went on for minutes at a time with no pause.

He was lost to sailing. There was a need not to need that perfected his joining with wind, sea and intuition. It was like an adventure renewing itself continually. It was like a velvet whisper running aside his heart.

That day he jumped from the schooner to the quayside, looked up and saw Suzanne. Chocolate au lait skin, light blue eyes and a sun tinted short afro. A white kaftan breezed sharply against a rounded body. Round stomach, thighs, round breasts, pointed knees.

That day went clumsy. That night went in wonder and delight. In the days that followed romance became a pure reality.

When Macy’s vacation ended the romance continued. Suzanne joined him in San Francisco within a few anxious days. Fine dining, park strolls, sparkling evenings.

When Suzanne’s vacation ended something added to the character of stranger in women for Macy. At the airport after the final kiss Suzanne said something that was taken in a casual happiness. She said, ‘This has been the best vacation I’ve ever had.’ She flew off to Chicago. He visited her once afterward but the pieces never quite fit back into the puzzle of love. Fifteen years back.

V HOMEWARD BOUND

Macy tacked at midnight, allowing for drift, he charted an almost reverse course. He forced Margo to go below to catch an hour’s nap, telling her that sleeping in a storm on a small boat was its own adventure to be lived through.

With the windward side being the starboard the low side of ‘Staraker’ was washed and sprayed with the fire lights of phosphorescence. Macy settled in low, hand lightly adjusting the spokes and felt his unrecognised tension slid out through his stomach. He was alone again. ‘Staraker’ was handling the gale with her heavy buoyancy. He stared at the strained trysail moist and dully shining in shadow. How ingenious, he thought of the development of sailing. Over six thousand years of recorded history and basically the same theories in practice. For all that time a man has steered a hand-crafted floater with cloth held by strings across water by using wind. Six thousand continuous years of refinement of one skill. Beats the bible all to hell, he smiled at his profession.

The cold cut in. He readjusted the foul weather hood. ‘Staraker’ was in her groove, she hardly had need for him, indeed, she was smoothly forging ahead in what seemed to be an effort to pull away from his company. He was smiling, teeth bared at the exhilaration.

He remembered that crazy old fuck. That crazy old fuck was named John Howles and lived alone in the swamp of North Caicos Island in the Atlantic Caribbean. John was a drunk, a poet, British and at times, a spy. He arrived on North Caicos as a spy during the Viet Nam thing not quite understanding what he was supposed to do, but gamely doing it.

One day John appeared in Turtle Cove on Providenciales Island, also in the Turks and Caicos group of islands and hit Macy up for money enough for a case of Scotch that had just been smuggled onto the island. How he knew from North Caicos that six cases of Scotch had been smuggled onto Provo Macy was never to know, as John said only that he caught a whiff and immediately threw his cat boat in the water and frantically rowed his way over.

John received a bi-weekly check from the British Home Office which usually left him broke for one week, every other week. Macy lent his the price of a Scotch breakfast sometimes and listened to John’s cutting words of wisdom, humorous hyperbole and local political commentary. John also loved sailing. And Macy was just at the beginning of his own fanaticism with the skill and passion of the endeavour. John had told Macy of that time in sailing that always comes to those most grasping of the simplicity of sailing, that time when everything moved away from one, when the body passed away from its self.

Maybe because of suggestion, but that same day, on the way back to North Caicos, towing John’s cat boat and watching John at the bow in meditation, that time happened to Macy.

And now at this moment he could feel and edginess to his thought process, a skipping of the beats of his heart, a waiting for his own breath. Things were moving away from him. He knew he was smiling at the event but did not want to contemplate for fear of losing it, whatever it was.

Macy looked down at the water and saw stars rushing by. He could not look away from the reflected stars even to check to see if the sky was clearing. Something in his chest forced him to reconsider even his breathing rhythm. He became apprehensive about touching himself, consciously repeating to himself to enjoy the moment for it will pass. He longed to let it just happen.

The rushing by stars changed to aquamarine waters in foaming greys. He looked up to see scudding clouds of black and grey. He relaxed with it, feeling as though he were being subtly twisted and pushed. When he resisted the light pressure he felt an exhilaration, a clearing through hard air. It took his breath and forced his lips to widen his smile.

‘Staraker’ was doing it again. Macy looked over at Margo, who was standing in the hatchway apparently talking to him. She looked cross and tired and cute with shimmering curls framing her face.

“¼the whole reason.” he heard her saying, “So, come on.”

“Sorry,” he yelled back to her, “I didn’t hear you.”

“Never mind.” She yelled, pinching her eyebrows together, moving out into the wind and toward the helm. She settled in on the other side of the wheel-box from him.

“What’s the course?”

“You don’t have to take it yet if you don’t want.”

 “That’s what I was yelling about. I’m here to experience, not sleep. Why didn’t you wake me after an hour like you said?”

Macy looked at the reflecting arms of his watch. It had been over four hours since he sent her below.

In the deep blackness just before dawn the wind became a breeze that slowed to stillness. The seas, without the pressure of the forceful air took on confused directions, began colliding and eddying and jumping insanely. A grey twisted morning presented itself suddenly.

Macy pulled the storm sails off and lashed the main boom to its gallows and the wheel in place. The motion aboard was too rough for him to prepare any foresails, so he just pulled Margo down onto the cockpit sole and wedged themselves into fetal curls that would not allow slippage or falling.

“How long?” Margo asked his very near lips.

“Am I god?” the lips said.

“Does this always happen after a storm?”

“Who says this is after?”

“I can’t pin you down on anything, can I?”

The lips tightened and pursed. “Do you need answers that you witness later as wrong or guess later were guesses? Do you need me to answer so that you can pin me down? The truth is, and if you’d look around you will see that this is truth¼ the truth is that I don’t know the future. The truth is that I am only living in sea time.”

“Sea time?”

“Objective subjectivity. Practical romanticism. Yin Yang.”

“Oh. It’s like a religious thing, a philosophy with you?”

“Everything’s a philosophy.”

“There you go again.”

The lips smiled.

“Tell me, Macy¼”

“Yeah?”

“What’s it like¼”

“Yeah?”

“What’s it like being a black sailor?”

His lips turned down at the corners then back up into a softer smile.

“I don’t know. I guess it’s like being a sailor who can’t find anybody to tell his sea tales to¼ I mean, while the thing is happening you don’t think about telling it to anybody, but after¼ when you feel you want somebody else to know a little of your truth¼ and, you know, nobody wants to hear¼ it’s too foreign or they think they know all you could tell them¼ I guess that’s sort of what it’s like to be a black sailor.”

“Frustrating.”

“Yeah, you’re a storyteller, you can understand, you know¼ around people it’s frustrating, yeah, it is¼ At sea though, the past experiences makes the whole experience a little more..”

“Real?”

“Naw. More like in tune.”

“In tune. In tune like with the forces?”

“Yeah I guess so. Like a musician, say a flutist, a progressive jazz flutist. I mean, do you ask a jazz flutist why the next note?”

 “Oh, you mean about me asking about the future?”

“Yeah. All I’m concerned about now is this conversation with you. It’s all the same conversation.”

“Okay, you mean me not listening to your sea tales, blackness and the future?”

 “Hey, you’re getting deep, girl.”

 “Who are you? Some Buddhist philosopher run away from a college professorship or something?”

 “Pinning me down again, eh? Nope, just a housepainter on a rest of my life sabbatical.”

 “You dropped out.”

 “Of what?”

“ You know, of a regular life. Getting up in the morning, going to work, paying bills, taxes, taking part in the community, marriage, kids¼”

“I dream about that type of life sometimes, probably like those types of people dream about my type of lifestyle. Some people force themselves into their dreams, declaring rules, setting up boundaries and defending what used to be a dream as a reality.”

“You don’t?”

His eyes came into view, looking into her’s while thoughts formed behind them.

 “I guess I’ve got rules, too¼”

 “Then you’re no different, basically, from the ones who force themselves into their dreams.”

 He blinked slowly and when his eyes appeared again they were focused on her lips.

 “Yeah. Basically, I guess we’re all the same.”

 His breath smelled of coffee.

 “Tell me a story.” she said to his eyes that looked back up at her and smiled.

 “Okay.”

Macy rose, told Margo to stay wedged, and slid to the hatchway disappearing below. John Coltrane emerged through speakers built into the cockpit sides. Macy returned in a rush, a bottle of rum in his hand and reinserted himself into his old position.

VI THE TALES END

“About six years ago I found out about a 72-foot yawl sitting anchored in front of Georgetown, Grand Cayman. The word on the waterfront was that the boat had a load of ganja aboard and the crew had jumped ship thinking the authorities were on to them.

“Of course, in the Caribbean anything the slightest bit unusual involving a boat or plane brings up the word smugglin’. To get to the bottom of it, since I smelled a delivery, or even a cheap sale in the offing, I went to the Port Authority who had just received a documentation identity on the graceful vessel. He gave the owners a call to reprimand them for not declaring the vessel and crew. He was told that there was a delivery crew bringing the boat to Florida and they, the owners were about to put out a Coast Guard alert as the vessel was overdue.

“The Port Captain asked if they wished the vessel delivered still, for I coincidentally happened to be in the Port Authority office asking exactly to do that.

“I talked to the owner, a Brian Jennings, originally from London, and agreed on the phone to a $2000 delivery from Cayman plus expenses and airfare back. I was elated. A beautiful classic Fife yawl, Caribbeana, built in 1902. Teak on teak on oak.

“Needless to say I was out and on to Caribbeana as fast as my dinghy could pull me. I searched the boat, in case it contained vegetable matter, and inventoried the gear. The engine did not work, so I started ferrying batteries, and these were heavy duty batteries to a dive shop that had a charger. I left the batteries bubbling to go check on my half payment which was to be wired to my account at Barclays. It was there so I went off to look for a crew. I would need three, I could afford one.

“Another coincidence had happened, in that a kid named Efram had been fired from his construction job for lipping off to the project boss. Efram had swam out to ‘Staraker’ when I was first anchored in South Sound and demanded that I teach him to sail. I taught him, enjoying the wildness with which he ran his life. On board, he never questioned an order, ashore he never agreed with anybody about anything.

“I found Efram in West Bay stoned out of his mind on some powerful Jamaican ganja. He was off in a “place” that I knew he favoured, that required a trek through a low prickly jungle to a rock cove where some Rastafarians lived. The music was only the sea crashing on the close reefs and the breeze whirling through red coral holes that stuck sharply up into the air. Two Ras were dancing to this or a mutually remembered tune when I arrived. Nobody took much notice of me, since They knew me through Efram.

“Efram,” I called to him sitting there on a flattened coral head, his feet dangling in the disturbed tide-pool. “blood, what it ‘tis?”

“Wha-goin-on?’ he replied staring out at the sea level.

“I need ya ta crew a 72-foot yawl ta Florida, a gaff classic, curving staircase, ya have your own room, shower. Got-ta fix tha engine though.”

“Done it be.” He replied still staring ahead. “How much for me?”

 “Five hundred and expenses and airfare back.”

 “Seven-fifty.”

 “Five.”

 “Done it is. But a hun’red ta fix da enjine.”

 “You don’t even know what’s the problem.”

 “A hun’red.”

 “Fifty.”

 “Seventy-five.”

 “Forty.”

 His face widened into a broad smile. He turned and squinted shut eyes to me.

 “Turty-five.” He said.

 “Forty-five.” I said.

 “Turty.” He said.

 “Fifty.” I said.

 “Done it ‘tis.” He said.

 He lifted his right hand up and looked at it for a few moments. He closed and opened it a few times, then reached it to me for a shake which I responded to. He forgot to take it away or even relax his shake and looked back out at sea.

 “Efram.”

 “Whaguan?”

 “My hand, Efram.”

Somehow Efram showed up at the dive shop that evening just as I finished paying for the charging. He wasn’t completely un-stoned but had his tool box and immediately set about helping me ferry the batteries back aboard.

By the first light of day the engine was sputtering and smoking on half of its six cylinders. We both went for a plunge over the side and rounded up a couple of small sea bass for breakfast.

At the first breeze we up anchored and sailed out of the main channel on a short shake down. After raising the gaffed main the rest was easy and Caribbeana sailed like a dream.

Then the problems started.

When we re-anchored off to the side of the main docks a motorboat tore out from the shore to come alongside. Aboard was the owner and his company. He was a short bearded fellow who always seemed to be moving. His company consisted of his wife, a handsome lady with wavy red hair holding their four-month old girl; his assistant and sometimes partner, who looked like a slender tall impression of a motorcycle gang rider, and his girlfriend, who looked like an adventuring tomboy complete with freckles

Their mouths hung collectively open after greeting us and our’s were open after seeing the surprise of them.

After the motorboat operator had been paid and left, and we were all standing around the foredeck watching the motorboat disappear behind the dock, the owner, Brian asked me:

“Do you know how to sail sailboats?”

I responded, “I’m learnin’.”

Then he said, without giving my answer any thought, “But I’m talkin’ about real sailboats here. I mean, you know, this vessel is worth $500,000US. I paid $500,000 cash for her¼ in one heap I might add. Five thousand dollars¼”

“Look, Mr. Jennings, you accepted me over the phone at the Port Captain’s recommendation before you saw that I was black. I’ve only been sailing about twelve years, most of that on my own little forty-two foot cutter but I’ve been almost around the world and have delivered over a hundred sailing vessels safely in all kinds of conditions except good. I am registered with Lloyds and have a list of references below in my cabin, or maybe I should say your cabin¼?”

“Okay, okay.” He said smiling at his tall slow eyed partner. “Just thought it best to be sure, is all. Got fucked by one delivery crew already. Once a trip is plenty, right? Look at it from my view, turnin’ up and seein’ what I takes ta be two islanders playin’ ‘bout on me ‘alf million buck boat? Here, see what I mean¼?”

“Okay, Mr. Jennings, where do we go from here?”

“Duke here is a damn good mechanic..”

“Gas.” Interrupted Duke.

“Gas, solar, diesel, what the tuff? Point is..” he stared meanly at Duke then pleasantly back to me, “he is gonna fix that fuckin’ Perkins good and smart like and we are then gonna take this fine beauty on up ta Key West, right?”

“We?” I asked, expecting the we.

“Of course. I got a little time off and am a crackerjack navigator. Willy here (pointing toward the tomboy) is keen on sailin’. So there, ya got a navigator, mechanic, sailor, and me wife is a wonderful chef du cuisine.”

“You don’t need us then.”

“Why sure, ya see I¼well, I never properly got-ta sail Caribbeana afore¼business and all, ya know.”

“Keeps you busy, your business?”

“Thirty hours a day. Look, why not you two stay on board as delivery crew like as before, same bills and we just are here like on a vacation, a charter, ya know like only we do the cookin’, hunh?”

“I don’t like to have owners aboard. There’s always a problem.”

“Look, you are the captain. What you say goes. Ya got any coke onboard?”

“Naw, we have some beer..”

“No, man, I mean some snuff.”

After we sorted ourselves into the cabins below, Efram produced a few spliffs that assuaged Jennings’ group from rowing ashore in search of cocaine. The next morning we virtualised and I cleared the vessel out of the Cayman Islands at the Customs and Immigration Offices. I stopped by the Port Captain’s office to tell him of this new event in the delivery and he unofficially told me to be careful; that Jennings was suspected of being a drug smuggler. I thought, shit, but what could he do on a simple delivery to Key West, and he probably was a good navigator, and I was already cleared, and it was a beautiful boat, and a nice sum of dinero¼

The wind, which had been a brisk Southeasterly, turned at midmorning to a brisk Northwesterly. Now, the problem as far as the weather is concerned wasn’t so much that the wind was right on the nose in respect to where we were going. I, unfortunately, was used to that as far as deliveries go. But, in the north Caribbean a Nor’wester is like a mini-hurricane and because of the exact opposite direction to the current flows the seas are like these we have here. So, it’s a bang and a bang. I chose to wait three days, they said they couldn’t wait¼ their schedules, you know,¼.important businessmen and all.

The Nor’wester slows a bit after sunset, so with a double reefed main, a 120 percent jib and no mizzen we up anchored and followed the sun’s last rays into the Caribbean darkness. The boat didn’t balance as it should have, so I tried the mizzen, reefed and we smoothed out like silk gaining two knots to windward.

I didn’t and don’t have much experience with yawls, and all that I’ve ever heard about them is bad but I tell you what, Caribbeana was a sailing witch.. and you didn’t even feel it. Efram and I were craning necks and slappin’ hands the witch moved so sweetly.

Of course Brian thought we should reduce sail so the boat wouldn’t tilt so much, he complained that the water was only spilling over onto the deck on one side of the boat and everybody knows that that makes the boat sail unbalanced, and not on an even keel¼everybody who knows about sailing sailboats.

So, we put the 150% genoa on in place of the 120%. Brian went below to smoke cigars with his steel eyed partner and Willy wandered over toward us at the wheel.

“You guys are pretty good.” She said off-handedly to me. “Ya gotta be a little patient with Bri, he’s used to cigarettes and supercharged sports fishermen.”

“You’re right,” I said, “why don’t you go down and call everybody up. I want to talk to you all.”

She gave me a curious look, attached a smile to it and scanted forward and down the hatch. She came back out followed by the bike rider, then the wife, then Brian Jennings.”

Jennings, still puffing on a cigar spoke first, “This better be important.”

“You.” I nodded at Jennings. “Take the helm. Course is due West and as close to North as you can get her.”

It was a stand up wheel with a teak protective rail attached outside the spokes.

“Get it in the slot, right?” he said in his was that made a question out of a statement.

“In the slot.” I agreed, seeing he was nervous, Efram smiled down at him as the Caymanian released the helm.

Jennings took the wheel and apparently l felt there was more to do than just stand there so he started turning it.

“Where you goin’?” I asked him as the bow started looking for the South Pole.

“Just testin’ the wheel, getting a feel¼?” He turned the wheel back the other way and the bow was going to start to look for the North Pole.

“Let go the wheel.” I commanded.

“What?” he said, turning the wheel back the other way.

“Let go and see what happens¼ to test, to feel.”

He let go and Caribbeana found her way back to the West.

“She’ll have the tendency at time to wander too far into the wind, to the North. Just keep your hand loosely on that spoke half way down pushes her there and lift up a bit when she pushes to go through.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, looking at his gang. “that’s called getting it in the slot.”

Efram laughed and went forward.

“I’ll keep you there for five minutes, then Willy, then you, uh, what’s your name?”

“Duke, my man.” The biker bobbed his head imitating what he apparently thought black people would appreciate as cool.

 “Duke. Then you, madame.”

 “You don’t have to call me madame.” The wife said, eyebrows raised.

 “Oh, what do I call you?”

 “Ann.”

 “Ann, Duke, Willy, Jennings and what’s the baby’s name?”

 “Jasmine.” She smiled at me, then looked at her husband and went serious again.

“Jasmine. Okay, Jasmine doesn’t have to stand a watch, but everybody else does.”

“Not my wife.” Jennings said, turning the wheel then over correcting and over correcting.

“Let the wheel go. Okay, anybody else not want to stand a watch?”

“Say, look ahere, bro,” Duke bobbed his head, “if this is gonna get heavy I think I’ll cut out and fetch some brew.”

“Sounds good, what about one for me, too.” I agreed.

“Me too.” said Willy.

“I’ll take one.” said Jennings.

“I’ll just bring a six-pack back with me. I’m sure true blood there wants one Hey, true blood,” Duke yelled forward to Efram. “what ‘bout a brew?”

“Right.” Efram yelled back to Duke.

“All right, man.” Duke said aloud, then turned to Willy. “Why don’t you bring up a six-pack, honey?”

Willy nodded, then shook he head as she went below.

“Fine lady I got there.” Duke said to us.

When Willy came back she took the wheel, then Duke, and I deduced that Willy was the only one of the three who had a feel to steer. So, the watch went: Willy and Duke; Efram and Jennings; then me alone; four on eight off.

Jennings never said a word about my navigating, nor ever asked to see a chart until the third day. The wind moderated and veered all the way round to the Southwest. I was giving Cuba a wide berth, because it was Cuba and because we were in the area that the Gulf Stream is born so we could be getting pulled or pushed anywhere without knowing. We only had a radio direction finder and hazy cloudy skies prevented any sextant work, so I wanted Cuba way aft and to the lee.

Efram woke me the dark morn’n of the third day with the news that the wind was truly out of the Southwest and Jennings had changed our course.

I climbed out of my comfortable dreams and sauntered on into a nightmare. Not only had he changed the course but he had changed the course the watch previously so we had been sailing six hours toward the Northeast. His logic was that this was where the Gulf Stream emptied so we could make excellent time with the favouring winds by cutting into the lee of Cuba.

Needless to say we had a confrontation. I called Jennings all kinds of stupid cock suckin’, mother-fuckin’ things and he in turn called me all kinds of stupid cock suckin’ motherfuckin’ things, unfortunately he let the magic word ‘nigger’ out and got a fist digging into his nose.

He didn’t fight back, nor did his partner, who had come up because of the shouting. They just went below with the little guy mumbling the magic word over his shoulder, technically, to the stars.

There was a small cuddy that sheltered the main hatch. A defunct radio-telephone, the radio direction finder and the chart table were cleverly housed within its rectangular windows. With Efram at the helm I went to try to deduce where we were only to find that the charts, there were three, of the North Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico were gone.

Can you believe this¼ here were are in between the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, somewhere to our right is Cuba, somewhere to our left is Mexico, underneath us are mischievous little Gulf Streamlets, a cloudy sky at dawn and I’ve got an egomaniacal lunatic hiding the charts. I mean there are low lying reefs on both side of us that we could hit well before we see any sign of land and these idiots are below smoking cigars, hiding charts and putting their own , the baby’s and my lives at jeopardy.

“Hey, do you feel that?”

“What?” answered Margo.

Macy put his head up, then scrambled out of the cockpit to the foredeck and began un-hanking the jib and hanking on a bagged sail. He ran back and unlashed the main from the gallows, then removed the gaskets. He took the jib out of the bag and attached its sheets as the main sail slipped out from between the gaff and boom, falling into the cockpit and the coachroof because of the rolling.

Macy raised the big genoa up which softly filled out and dampened the motion aboard. Then he raised the main, the peak and played out the sheets. He set a course and trimmed down as ‘Startrekker’ glid evenly forward, a sea splashing aboard now and then out of its own confusion.

“Well, we’re goin’ home now, matey.”

“What happened?”

“The breeze sprung up.”

“No, I mean¼ the story?”

“Oh that, well, hell you don’t want to hear that now, you’re experiencing, remember?”

“Come on¼”

“Naw, let’s sail.”

“You fuckin’ bastard.”

* * * * THE END * * * *
Copyright H. E. Ross 2025

Image Source: Dey from Fictom.com