By
the light of the swaying oil lamp he can see the weathered hands of his father,
with his skin taut and puckered and the dark blue veins standing up like
railroad tracks. He pulls from his pocket an ancient smoking pipe made of dark
briar wood, the bowl all charred and cracked and the mouthpiece chewed down to
a mere sliver. He puts the pipe between his teeth and reaches back into his
pocket, this time pulling out a white tip match that blazes up in a flash as he
strikes it on the side of the old cast iron ship’s stove that sits in the
middle of the galley. He cups his hands in the fashion of old sea captains and
tokes rhythmically, sending gray billows of vanilla and whiskey scented smoke
puffs curling up into his face and through his thinning hair, each puff stoking
the rich Carolina tobacco and casting an amber glow on the man’s face,
revealing decades of salt damaged skin and sun lines and silver beard stubble
and milky white eyes scarred by thousands of ocean glares.
The
man reaches over for the speckled tin coffee pot simmering slowly on the stove,
with its’ blackened bottom and dented sides, and pours them both a cup of thick
black brew.
How do you
take it, he says.
You know how I take it.
The man’s eyes glare orange and narrow at him.
That’s no way for a man to take his
coffee.
How does a man take his coffee?
Black, he says. Black and thick,
like the sea tonight.
Coffee doesn’t make men.
No, it doesn’t. The sea does.
Ah, the sea. I told you, I’m not
taking it.
The man puffs on his pipe, leering, observing the
boy, sizing up his face, his resolve.
When I was your age, my father gave
me an old sloop. She was called Merganser.
Her bones are out there somewhere.
He gestures toward something far away, beyond the
hull of the boat, beyond the sea itself, to a place no man could ever go. The
boy shakes his head.
Things are different now. I don’t
see things the way you do.
The man sits for a moment with his pipe clenched
between his teeth, one eye shut tight against the smoke, his head cocked, looking
like a wood carving of a myth. He gets up slow and hobbles to the front of the
old stove and kneels down to open the vent hole. The oil lamp swings
hypnotically in rhythm with the swell, casting a glow across the cabin that, in
one second bathes the man in golden yellow and the next in cold blackness as
the wooden timbers of the boat creak in time with the pendulous light, the
lapping of the water, the steady flap of wet canvas and the sporadic cracking
of rope against sail. The old man’s back is curved and bony and when he stands
again, he stands slowly like a street drunk after a fall. He wobbles for a
moment, gripping the cool part of the stove for support, and almost slipping,
almost failing to stay on his feet, and he stands there with his back toward
his son feeling that there are no words that can be said that aren't already
echoing throughout the cabin and beyond it, and knowing full well that he'll be
the last in his line to call the sea his home. The wind his
friend.
The
man speaks, but he doesn't turn. He speaks to the sea, to the dark, to the
night that lies between them.
You go then, he says. You go and see this country. I want that for
you. I want you to grow strong on words and ideas, not salt and rain. And this. This life.
The man does not turn to look at his son, he turns
instead toward the hatch and he walks there, composed and strong. He puts his
foot on the step, and holds onto the cold brass rail with a grip that's still true ,and he pauses for a moment. He's steady like a rock
there in the light and he turns to the boy.
She’ll be here. Waiting.
We’ll sail her in the summers. I’ll fit her out and keep her ready for you.
Then he climbs the ladder, slides the hatch cover
open and goes out on deck, the low rush of the wind increasing to a howl for a
moment until he slams the cover back closed and the boy hears the thumping of
feet in the cockpit above him and the barking of his father and the rush of men
across the deck. He sees the oil lamp lean far over on its gimbals as the old
schooner comes hard about.
He
stands and feels the water rushing beneath the boat. He feels the hum of the
sea on the cabin wall with his hand. He watches the lantern flame dance. And in
that light he surveys the cabin where he spent so many summers, the narrow bunk
where he read a hundred books with a tin flashlight, the little folding table
where he drank coffee for the first time and learned to read a chart, his
father's worn arm chair, his pipe rack, the brass hook with his hat. He sees
the black and white framed photo on the wall, a portrait of his father as a
young man behind the wheel of Merganser. He sees the end of a man.. He reaches into the locker beneath the ladder and pulls
out the yellow slicker that has his name written crudely on the back of the
collar with a black felt tip pen. He puts it on and climbs the ladder. He opens
the hatch with a whoosh that whips salt spray into his face and he tastes it on
his teeth and likes the way that it feels. He stands alone on deck for a moment
and watches his father pulling at the end of the jib sheet and he rushes to him
and takes the line from his hands and the old man turns. There's fear in his
eyes and there's love there too. His bloodshot eyes that see
too much. The tiniest hint of a smile graces the man's face as he steps
back to let the young men do the work. The rain falls hard. It whips sideways.
The ocean blows veils of spray over the rail and the whole of the deck is awash
with droplets of flying sea.
*