| Marooned |
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The inevitable question when you’re marooned off the Florida coast: Who brought the rum?  It was one of those spur-of- the-moment trips when you just say, “What the hell? Why not?” Possibly, you’re in a bar when the idea occurs to one of you—my friend Charlie in this case—so you dash home to toss a change of clothes in a bag and hit the store on the way out of town to stock up on salty snacks and a bottle of booze. We had momentum, that’s what I’m saying, and it carried us all the way to the coast and into the boat. It was a glorious autumn afternoon, fading with infernal fanfare into dusk, and we’d just about sailed out of sight of land when the little boat lurched violently. With a tremendous clatter and the tinkle of shattering glass and a choice bit of cursing, everything onboard—maps, groceries, plates and cups, Charlie at the helm, and me on the rail—continued sailing for a foot or two, but the boat, firmly secured to a shoal, went nowhere at all. Suddenly, no more momentum. Charlie immediately leaped into the frigid dark water to assess the situation. I don’t know what he hoped to accomplish, but he came up sputtering, standing neck-deep on the sandbar, shoving against the hull and shouting arcane nautical orders. I finally managed to release the mainsail—the boom swung out and nearly decapitated Charlie—and the canvas commenced snapping in the breeze with a sound like gunshots. Charlie groaned with effort as he strained to free us, but instead of floating off the bar, the boat dug in deeper. When Charlie dolphined back aboard, an entrance as dramatic as his exit, I just lost it, convulsed with the sort of laughter that threatens rib damage. It was a belly laugh many years in the making—all the years I’d resisted going to sea on the Sally Jean. Sure, we were great friends, Charlie and I, longtime doubles partners in a Tallahassee city tennis league. He had a wicked serve and a graceful if fallible backhand, and although he couldn’t always be counted on to arrive completely sober, you could be sure he’d keep things light. We were frequent scuba-diving buddies as well. He loved it more than I did; he’d call, and I’d go, and I’d be glad I did. Same with a game of poker or a night’s carousing. Every man needs a friend like Charlie, the boon companion, the rogue and raconteur, the perennial bachelor who’ll drag you to strip clubs and introduce you to unsavory characters and involve you in harebrained schemes. Generally, he was great good fun, especially in small doses, but I’d always made my excuses when he talked about sailing. I mean, you could look at his truck and deduce his boat. By profession he was a cabinetmaker—out of chaos, somehow, precision—and the sawdust and lumber and tools overflowed into the cab, where they mixed with tax folders and fast-food debris and schoolbooks, for in his mid-thirties he was still plugging away at that B.S. in, of all things, criminology. His true liability, I always thought, was that he was just coasting, biding his time, waiting to inherit a small but sufficient fortune. As a result, his life was a mess, his truck was a mess, his 30-foot sailboat a disaster waiting to happen. He just was not yare, as the sailing folks say, not by a long yard. What finally reeled me in was windsurfing, my latest enthusiasm, and Charlie’s inspired bar talk of blue water and open-sea swells. So when we made our hasty preparations that afternoon, I bundled up my gear and strapped it all onto the foredeck. I’d pictured it so clearly: While Charlie chugged along at the rudder of the Sally Jean, destination Tampa and the storied Katanga Club, I’d be skipping over the ocean on a wild wing and a prayer. And then there we were, not an hour out of port and wrecked. Goddammit, Charlie, I told you! We wrestled down the mainsail. Then I said something mildly snide, like “Nice bit of navigating there, Cap’n,” and he laughed his accustomed rueful laugh, and we rubbed our chins and regarded the twinkling lights of Shell Point and thought we ought to have ourselves a drink. So began a most thorough crime-scene investigation, a sifting-through of debris and an emptying of sacks and a gradually more desperate banging open and shut of cupboards. Clearly, an act of stupidity had occurred, but running aground was a mere misdemeanor. The felony, which we both pictured simultaneously like a cartoon bubble above our heads, was forgetting that last brown paper bag on the seat of the truck. Goddammit, Charlie! I don’t know how many times we looked at the limes and the Cokes and the lights onshore before I finally said, “All right, I’m going for it!” Of course, the Sally Jean had no dinghy, no life raft, no EPIRB, no rescue equipment whatsoever. But I had my sailboard, and there was wind. I could feel the momentum returning. How about some blackwater sailing? Charlie warmed to the idea at once. This was Charlie time, big-time, his veritable element, and he rubbed his hands with glee as I tossed my gear overboard and followed after. He wished me Godspeed and specified his favorite brand of rum. I had a running swell, a tailing wind, and the lights of Shell Point to guide me. I must admit I felt positively Bond-like when I hauled the rig ashore and stashed it in a dark place. Less so as I stood in line at the liquor store in my wetsuit, an embarrassing puddle spreading at my feet. Getting back to the Sally Jean was a bigger challenge. The wind had dropped, and what little remained was dead against me. I had to tack countless times, and each time I risked a spill and a possible shattering of the bottle, which I’d tucked into the chest of my suit. And if I fell, there was a good chance I’d have to unrig the sail and paddle, which would spoil the whole effect. Because by then, sailing under the stars, the water soft as velvet, I was so into the feat, the Charlie-inspired crazy derring-do of it, there was no way I could fail. This would be a story we’d tell down the ages. And, man, the look on his face as I hove into sight, pumping the sail, the way he clapped me on the back and laughed and laughed. He wanted to hear every detail as we cracked open that bad boy and poured us a rum and Coke with a twist. That was a good drink. Ah, Charlie. Here’s to boon companions everywhere. We need them, and we outlive them by years. By years and years and years. |
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