A story for a windy afternoon

[Chilli]

I began this story for a small local paper in Maryland. I have not yet added onto it. I haven't figured out just yet where it is going to take us, but I ought to come up with that shortly... Anyhow, I figured I'd share it with you guys, the motley sportfisherman crew. I hope you enjoy and I promise... I'll pick the pen back up and finish the ride over the next couple of weeks... Anyhow here is the begin, always the best place to start.....
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I’m fortunate enough to have the kind of job that lots of folks dream about. It gives me the opportunity of visit some interesting place. The funny thing about interesting places is that they tend to be full of interesting people. I though it might be fun to take a little trip and visit some of the folks I’ve met along the way. I figured I could blend a little bit of each of them into a tale. I’ll have to do this in pieces. I’m afraid I have more to say than one sitting will allow. I hope you’ll remember each month that we have somewhere to go. Sit down, relax and lets see where this takes us.



The sailfish flags that where nailed to the rafters started to flutter. The warm breeze that had been ebbing and waning all day began to pick up. It had a cool edge to it. When it hit the back of my neck, I looked up from the coaster I had been toying with. It was soggy. The condensation from the cold beer that held it down had soaked it through. I saw a bank of black clouds on the horizon. The giant anvils where flashing yellow and pink as the lightning coursed through them. A storm, finally, a storm, that would knock this heat down. I’m not big on storms, not many seafaring folks are, but know with my feet firmly on the rung of a bar stool and sweat bead rolling down my forehead, a storm sounded nice, damn nice.

“You want another?” “Yea I’ll have another, got no place to go tomorrow.” Two more bottles appeared. The soggy coaster sat in the middle of a puddle now and Carl began to speak again. “You see some folks just don’t see things the way others do. There are folks in this world that don’t need a waterfront condo in Palm Beach. The though of driving an SUV with leather seats and a TV in the ceiling turns their stomachs. Its not that they don’t like nice things, its just they have their own idea of what nice things are. You see Chili, some folks is happy just to draw in a breath of sweet sea air and if they can do that and watch the sun into the western sea, then that it. That’s what they need.”

As I pondered this, I couldn’t keep my eyes off Carl’s face. There where wrinkles everywhere. Little wrinkles on his temple ran down into deeper wrinkles around his eyes. These too gave way to the deepest wrinkles of all that seemed to pool high on his cheeks. A person could get lost in the wrinkles, they where infinite. As infinite as they where, they where overshadowed by his wild white hair. It wasn’t white really; it had a yellow hue to it. I imagine that it was a life on the ocean that had put that yellow tint on his topknot. The sun, the rain and the salt spray, all finding their way to this head that had more character than an old New England barn. He put the clear bottle of Kalik to his lips. The rim of the beer bottle parted his moustache. It was an enormous bushy critter that matched his hair to a tee.

He must have caught me staring at him. “Life leaves its mark on you Chili. It doesn’t happen all at once, but she leaves her mark, one piece at a time. Most of the time you don’t even know she’s doing it, till one day you wake up and look in the mirror. It hits you then. It hit me anyhow. It’s not easy to accept that you’re an old man. I sure as hell don’t feel that way, but the mirror tells a different tale. I must have been about your age when it all started. I was working in a silverware factory. Worked the graveyard shift. They gave me a wheel borrow, a corn scoop and a broom. I was supposed to sweep up the lint from under the buffing machines. They’d buff the silver clean on these big cloth wheels and the lint would build up in big piles on the floors. It was black oily nasty stuff. Every night I’d make my rounds and shovel that oily, dusty lint into the hopper. It was horrible work. The hours sucked. The lint filled your lungs and the oil they used as a polish would dye your skin black. I was young thou you see. I didn’t know any better. I though that’s what working for a living meant. My mother was a seamstress. She worked hard. She kept us fed. I grew up around sewing machines and bolts of cloth, heck you couldn’t walk barefoot in the house for fear of stepping on a pushpin. They where everywhere, those push pins, and they hurt like hell when you ran one up into your foot.”
“So you’re the son of a seamstress Carl? That’s kind of funny, I never would have thought it.” “Well that how it happened. It that very same thing that save me too.” “Saved you from what?” “Saved me from getting caught in this damn rat race that everybody is so fond of running, that’s what. I need another beer.” Carl turned and stared out into storm that had enveloped the bar. The wind was up and the crash of thunder was closing in. The boats where rocking in their slips. You could hear the grown of the dock lines as they took the strain of the shifting boats. “You see, I ran in to this fellow one night. We were at a card game. Ended up loosing my shirt. When I left, those sharks had most of my paycheck. Mighty fine card players they where though. Like I said I was young. Who in their right mind would go to a poker game with their paycheck in their pocket? If that ain’t poking the devil in the eye with a stick, I don’t know what is. Well, it wasn’t all bad. I didn’t much money left over, but got a job out of that fellow. He said he was opening a sail shop down in the islands. He was belly aching over the fact that he didn’t have anybody who could mend sails. I mean, who’s heard of a sail shop that can’t mend sails. See that where all that seamstessing came in. I walking on clouds as I lay there on my bed thinking of mending sails down in the islands. I dreamed of hammocks, brown skinned island girls, rum and fish. Best damn poker game I ever lost. I marched into the silverware factory the next night chest out, head high and quit. Just like that. Two days later I was getting on a plane. First time I had ever flown. Had one bag full of cloths, a fishing rod and a dog-eared copy of Huckleberry Finn. That’s all it took. When landed I saw that tropical blue water for the first time, the palm trees hung over the landing strip and I had a spring in my step that I had never felt before.

To be continued…

[JMS-ILM]

wow.........



do we have a modern day robert ruark on our hands here?

[flatbottom]

come back soon ...

[Foul Hooked]

Very Nice Travis - now get your arse writing - I want the rest of the story.

[Chilli]

“So what happened next?” I said. Carl had stopped speaking and his eyes where following a waitress as she made her way across the floor. “Damn son, its not polite to interrupt a man from a dream” He said with a bit of a snicker in his voice. “Well I ended up eating a lot of seafood.” “Things didn’t work out just like I’d planned, which it to be expected cause truth be told I didn’t really plan at all. I just got on a plane and headed south”. “I stopped by the address of the sail shop. I arrived just in time to see the carpenter taking down the big old sign that read, Bag O Wind Sail & Rigging. Turns out I was a worse poker player than I thought. The fellow who took my paycheck and gave me a job, lost the damn shop in a poker game in the time it took me to pick up roots and get there! At least that what the carpenter told me. I spent quite a while doing what any young man would do in paradise. I drank a lot of beer in a little one-room shack down by the beach. It was ragged too let me tell you. The only way I could tell it was a bar was the fact that they took my money and gave me a drink. Well then there was the other pastime. I did my share of chasing the local women. Chase might not have been the right word, seems most of them worked on the same principle as that shabby bar. It certainly wasn’t the most wholesome time in my life, but a good time was never more than a few steps away back then. I’m sure I altered my lifespan a good bit, but I was making damn sure I enjoyed myself.”

“I had been in my self induced fog on the beach for quite a while when I found the sail boat. She was a 32 Hunter. I found her on the beach on day. She was lying on her side. The mast was missing and the tides had buried her pretty well in the sand. I moved in. Whatever storm had put her there had left her a good ways above the normal tide line. I turned what was left of her jib into some sheets and even a curtain to cover the gaping hole on her port side. I slept lying on her starboard side, staring up at the stars and the moon through the ragged hole in her port side. The reef she ran aground on did an awful nice job creating my skylight. In those days I survive quite nicely spearing fish inside the reef and selling some bugs every once in a while to the folks in town. I was quite content living in a shipwreck. It wasn’t until the mosquitoes showed up one day that I realized I might have to pursue another avenue.”

[Foul Hooked]

Very nice Chilli

[PurpleCedarPlug]

I want this story to last for @ 20 more years and then I want a signed copy of the book by the author..

Great Stuff

[John Rogers]

Great story Travis. Keepem coming

[SharkJP]

Im am very, VERY impressed. . . see guys, this is the type of stuff i get to hear every charter. . . life is good

[Squidnation]

Damn Chilli - If you get some thoughts while up in the tower jot them down on the console. Maybe one day I can sell the console for millions. Just like a Hemingways urinal at Sloppy Joe's

great stuff