WINDOWS

WINDOWS 

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. “Gotta pull it together, hamburgers and Coca Cola and, and...” 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 loosing 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 night, unless you were in front of a fireplace looking over at a window at what you do not have to be in, 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, wasn’t going to 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 his cutter 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 one or two?”

The sailor smiled back, brightening his dark 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, just..."

“Shh.”

“ShhÖ”

“Shh.”

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.

“So, Lucy ” the pretty actor with the neatly trimmed beard said looking down at his cup in the expensive looking restaurant. “What are we, I guess I should say what are you...”

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 voice called. “Hey buddy, sorry we didn’t pay much attention. From 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 draw.”

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 a foreigner 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 line...coke?”

“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 the welcoming fire. His socks were 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 anyway.’ he thought, eyes sparkling in the fire’s wilderness. ‘No blood, well except that leaving my fingertips cuz of the cold, no sex, except 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 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’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’ me. Gonna 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 damn...’ He looked round to see if he’d been talking aloud but everybody was still consumed in television and serious subjects.

He yawned to 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 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 and sauntered out into the night, closing the door behind him.

The bartender watched him as the door opened, the man exited and it closed.

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

“Shh.” responded one.

“At the best part.” said the one who had spoken to the sailor. “Takes all kinds.”

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