Edge of the Bay

Edge of the Bay      

It was a beautiful San Francisco day. Created for boat, sail and sea. The breeze was starting to show a potential for anything. I smiled at pulling the main and mizzen sail covers back and folding them. Three seagulls were cawing in disagreement about something while circling the marina. 

The cumulous moved slowly above the distant hills across the Bay making an undulating shadow play over brown and green mounds. The Bay was crisp with wavelets and green with invitation to a good sailing party for three: the Bay, Lizard King and me.

I looked back up at the two remaining gulls circling and cawing. So beautiful they were with their snow breasts and light grey wings etched into the thick cloud puffs and deep-blue sky patches. Perfectly made. Fitting in. I smiled broader at this late night’s late morning poetic vent.

I went forward, slid the focs’le hatch back and dumped the folded cover inside onto the port bunk. I unhooked the bagged forestaysail and pulled it onto the deck. Loosening the bag lacing, I pulled out the tack and bent it onto the bowsprit traveller ring and the head to the halyard, tying the luff around the port bitts with its lanyard. I bent on the jib head to its halyard and the tack to the traveller-ring around the bowsprit. I hanked the jib onto the forestay, keeping the sail in the bag.

A movement caught my attention and I looked up at a person in bulky running pants, jacket and hood standing on the seawall. I focused with a squint and saw the brown face and almond eyes of a woman. My first thought was that she is a coke freak wanting some money. That had never happened to me at the marina.

‘Say man’ she said, nodding long after the words came out.

I smiled to her. ‘Hey, how you doin?’ My tone would let a child know that I did not feel like continuing a dialogue.

‘Shit, you don have ta shoo me away so bad, man.’

‘Sorry, but this is my day to be alone and I just want to, and intend to take it.’ I said it nicely, hoping to throw her off with its mixture.

‘Hey now… I can dig it, cool. I musa just thought you was who you wasn’t, is all’, she said, not moving to turn or walk.

I bent back down to the jib bag, tying the hand-grasp onto the port cleat, before I looked back up. She stood there looking the boat over. I moved to the main mast and untied the jib halyard, then unhooked the halyard shackle. With both ends of the halyard I went back to the jib bag and hooked the shackle into the head cringle. She was looking at me with curiosity about to burst out of her face.

‘Go ahead’, I said meekly.

‘What?’

‘You looked like you had a question?’

‘Oh, I thought you were telling me to get away from here.

But, I did have a question I had lots of questions, truth be known.’

‘And?’

‘Well, I was at the library and saw this thang on these guys sailin’ around in these boats… Well, is this a world cruiser, man? Has you sailed around the world in this little boat?’

That struck me funny. This little boat? I thought. Then, I thought for a second and I could probably sail around the world in her.

‘Well, sorry, I’ll go, didn’t mean to insult ya. I know you gots to sail by yo’self ta’day and wonders what one of us is doing thinking about a boat, hunh?’

I raised my hand with my smile coming and going. ‘What are you talking about? I don’t understand?’

‘You don’t unnerstand? Whad’s there to unnerstand? I a fool an’ you laugh at a fool. Simple, don’t gots ta stretch yo pea for that…’

‘When did I laugh at you? This is getting stupid. You get insulted at everything, that’s probably why you...’Oops, I frowned at myself. ‘Didn’t mean that.’

‘Yes you did, o you would’n a said it. You is you and I is I and never the twain s’posed ta meet.’

‘Look, I had a real nice day goin’ on here. Now, I gotta feel guilty for saying something when I didn’t want to talk in the first place. And, I gotta look up at your pitiful expression and tell you that I am going sailin’.’

‘That’s all right. I been hurt befo’ and wasn’t tryin to make you guilty or nothin’ like that… I jus wanted to know what kind of boat this is? You know, see, I hangs out here, people are kind of generous, and I sees the boats out there sailin’ all the time and it kinda relaxes me from my worries… ta see them out there. So, if I knows what they is I can feel more… closer, yeah, closer to them. Make me feel better.’

‘Okay. This is a ketch.’

‘Yeah, yeah, a ketch, I knows that… I looks in the books… at the library, but is this a ocean goin’ ketch is my question?’

‘Oh, okay, actually when you asked me that earlier it made me realize that yes, this is a blue water vessel. I hadn’t thought of it in those terms. This one is a double-ender, meaning her rudder hangs over the stern. A canoe stern is when the rudder is under the boat. She is thirty-four foot and they use this design for fishing in the North Sea in all weather. She has a really deep keel. Easy on the helm; steers herself.’

‘What’s her name… so I can call out to you out there.’

I smiled, a little ashamed of myself for almost missing this conversation. ‘I call her Lizard King, though I refer to her as a woman.’

‘Lizard King… good name. Lizard King. The king of reptile. My name Harry, for Harriet… Grodin. That was my husband’s name. He died. I’m jus Harry now.’

‘Sorry. You okay?’

‘You mean do I needs any money ta leave you alone? Naw, I mean I always needs money but naw, you been nice and I will go.’

‘No, I mean, really, I got my wallet down below.’

‘No. Please. You gots a kitchen, galley, I mean, down in that Lizard King? And a bed and all?’

When she said the name I felt us getting closer but I did not want company today of all days. So, I answered her more formally than I actually felt. ‘Well, I have a stove with oven and grill, a shower and a couple of usually damp bunks, yeah.’

‘Can you take me sailin?’

My mouth opened and I breathed out. The smile was gone, the seagulls were gone. The breeze pushed at my hair and the side of my face, making me feel it and making me smile again.

‘Look, maybe another day, but not today. Today is my time alone with Lizard King. I have been away for awhile and I promised myself that it is my day to sail her alone, and I love it when I sail alone. It’s different than being with anybody else. Like you said, it relaxes me like nothing else.’

‘Well, the only time I sails is with a heated rock-spoon or a velvet needle. I ain’t got no boat, dammit, I ain’t got no choice in the mattah. You got yo’ schoolin’ and job and I out here in the streets. Ain’t got no choice, Got to do what I got to do.

‘Yous probably a good man. Good to yo’ wife, yo’ friends, an good to usn’s on the street when we in yo face, but you can forget us; can close the doh’ to yo car and turn up the music and forget us’ns. We sees you’all though. We can’t exist without you’all, so we sees you an’ everyone of you’all…’

She turned and bent down to pick up a stuffed pack that I hadn’t noticed. She walked away along the stone breakwater. I looked at her easy, balanced stride. I looked down at the tan deck of the Lizard. Above, a gull had returned, one gull. It circled twice and took off for the Bay.

That act of taking flight built excitement in me. I was going out to face the seas again and had better have my wits with me when I go. I looked back along the breakwater and saw her as a distant figure sitting down with her feet hanging over the water. I smiled to myself. 

‘This is not a day to get depressed. This is a day for the passion of being a part of beauty. Sorry mama…’ 

I let loose the dock lines and pulled the boat stern first out the berth, I pushed her away and went forward and quickly raised the mainsail.

A siren wailed somewhere in the City.