We are back on the little town the very day four friends decided go...how can I say it?...well, fishing, because they had fishing rods and a boat and......
Late summer afternoon after the missus had gone all the way by trying a long lost (she thought) culinary recipe handed down it seems from the very and only true chef that had cooked the meal in honor of Adam before he chocked with a bite of Eva’s apple.
Well, we American like gargantuan portions, so gargantuan were served and my belly went the size of a Salvation Army collect pot, which forced me to a quasi slumber on my rocking chair like a bear after eating one ton of cherries.
The later summer sun had gone lower than the porch roof and had waked me up like the warm tongue of a puppy licking my face.
Too lazy to even consider rearrange my butt on the cushions but not to reach down into the cooler, that my better half wisely had put there, and fish me a cool bottle of first class, all American (for now) beer named Coors.
After the wasp wars, a new screen door made by Manuel assisted by “little” Manuelito was in place.
The smell of new wood mixed with that of the wire-covered mesh were telling that something new was around.
Manuel. He and Mary and Joe were my pals, my only pals, one can say the left over of a forgotten war, which no one wants to remember.
Well, Manuel long ago decided to buy a long rowboat, big enough to contain all four of us on a fishing/drinking/what-the-heck trip, even capable of taking onboard “little” Manuelito 6.4 that hold 370 odd pounds.
With him onboard, Marty would say, we would need a quarter of a mile long oars to move the boat.
As it was we didn’t need no long oars, (there wasn’t anybody dexterous enough to manage one of those chow sticks anyway) because Manuel boat was one of those old open lifeboats with a small motor that would go on nearly anything the capt’n dare to drink himself.
In the hole where a sail-mast was supposed to be, was a huge parasol out of a truck’s back, “courtesy” of Joe’s place of night-watch employment.
When that parasol was open, it almost covered the entire boat, and if you tilted it, the breeze would take hold and we would sail like Columbus Santa Maria.
“little” Manuelito will be the food and beverage carrier and in charge to load the coolers when they went perilously empty, a lot of coke sodas for himself, our life saving Coors and the Barolo wine for Joe.
Manuelito was a permanently good mood kind of fellow on his early twenties, (just a guess of Manuel that didn’t have a clue) and a little slow in the attic but not on his legs as the swarm of wasp obliged him to demonstrate.
I took a healthy couple of beer swigs, rocking my chair to lull my body back into complacency and my min to drift away recalling the day we went fishing.
We were fishing in waters that for all we knew was going like a no ending cascade on the horizon if the world were flat (ain’t?) and more wide that the hips of that gossiping big momma from Tupperware parties.
I nearly forgot to tell you about our bait, or where we got it from.
Funny how you make me remember that little detail.
Well, our marina ain’t a fancy one, just a bunch of boat tied together and it is up to you to disentangle the knots of other so-called “sailors” that get berserk with fear of losing their floating tubs and give the ropes a few extra on their soaking wet ropes.
Have you tried anytime to open one of those suckers after the ropes get dry and the ties had tugged at it but good making them as hard as a golf balls?
Well, our marina was opened by the great-grandfather of ‘ol man Jefferson, you know that little rascal Sammy grandfather, also him partner with Indian Joe (not our Joe) at moonshine enterprises frowned upon by sheriff Amos which couldn’t wish a better birthday present that catch them in the act.
Affectionately we call him “crazy ‘ol man,” he doesn’t seem to care one way or another, after all he his short of a can of beer of his six-packets brain, and go permanently around like a menacing dark cloud followed by a scrawny dog of undefined race (mostly gray long haired wolf dog) with a penchant to jump like a rabbit at loud sudden noises. Certainly, a canine in need of Prozac.
The marina “office & stores” was a run down shack build just after the bouncer threw Adam from Paradise Bed & Breakfast, and had been with the years suffered the mending and reparations with diverse material, looking now more like a collage of derelict items put together than a building.
Tourists seemed to like it because who else would stand in front of it and had his or her photo was taken?
Inside, if you ever went stray, the air was more fouled up than an in summer unattended military latrine, so business were conducted on the over the water porch, to give your nostrils some workable air for your lungs.
‘ol crazy man got the money you got the bait consisting of freshly dug up worms, some of them the size of a boat oar, well not “that” big, but fatty big if you know what I mean, and if you don’t, you ain’t a fisherman.
Joe, the one despising beer (the dumb son of a gun) and with a backpack loaded with Barolo wine took upon his already tipsy head to sit down and start price haggling for a jug of moonshine with a becoming by the minute very angry crazy ‘ol man offended by the notion that his wares were overpriced.
They were on the face of each other like the knives would come out any moment when as sudden as they were screaming to each other…they stopped, smiled, money and jug changed hands and everybody was heading for the boat where little Manuelito was sitting in the middle with his arms around the parasol, a clear indication that he hadn’t sea legs.
Manuel and Marty were patiently waiting for our arrival holding the rope of our fishing Santa Maria gentle pulled by a breeze that had take hold of the tilted parasol canvas.
With the fishing rods, the food and the coolers onboard, it was to whistle Anchors away as we helped Joe’s heavy legs over the left side boat’s gunwale (pardon, port) and we were off with the sun clobbering down at anybody moving from its high eleven o’clock position.
The little motor diesel wasn’t necessary as the breeze pushed us and Manuel on the rudder aimed for the center as we moved forward slowly and silently.
Except for little Manuelito holding for dear life onto the mast-dash-parasol and Manuel’s navigating, everybody else had comfortably spread his limbs and enjoying the slow ride over waters as flat as a Wal-Mart parking lot.
Joe was in charge of the entertaining playing deep snores with Barolo wine essence.
Life was good.
I had probably dozed a little because I nearly whacked Marty with the short handle of my fishhook, being suddenly startled by Manuel carelessly throwing overboard the anchor and its chain rattling on the gunwale as it went down.
My tongue felt around my mouth and found it like full of cotton.
I needed a Coors
“Okay ladies,” said Manuel, “get on fishing…or…whatever…”
My watch said that is was long over thirteen hundred hours and the parasol wasn’t tilted no more because the sun was frying the bacon of Elmer.
Looking around we had all the waters for ourselves, with only children moving on the shallow waters about the shore over a mile away, now and then we could hear their screams of delight.
No wind, no wind surfers, no sailboats that could come around and disturb our fishing grounds.
We had came here a few times, trying to be the one to catch “Wallop Bessie” a monster bass that one of us had supposed was a she being so feisty against any man trying to put his hands on her.
Just if you don’t know, a bass could come in the size of a 300 pounds mother that you don’t gonna throw on the boat with toss of a hand.
We had never lost any line, we hadn’t even see a minimal ripple made by “Wallop Bessie” but, like buying a lottery ticked, if you don’t throw your hook you can hope to catch anything.
After baiting our hooks the lines when overboard and the rods firmly resting at forty-five degrees over the gunwale trapped on Manuel’s bolted pipes on the bottom of the bilge (how about that Navy men?!)
Joe got a disapproval frown from Manuel, as all ways for not using a fishing rod (which was available for him) and instead using a heavy thousand pound thick nylon line with a huge and mean three hook contraption that he would throw a far as he could, let it sink to the bottom and drag it until it came free, retrieved onboard and repeat the operation until it was time to hit the Barolo again.
From time to time he would catch smoothing that little Manuelito, in charge of gutting and washing the Poseidon offers, would put on a cooler for late consumption.
Having consumed breakfast ‘round O-seven-hundred, it was time to fill our internal boilers with comestibles pushed down with brought brew.
Has I said, life was good.
With mouthfuls of sandwich, pickles, and beer swigs there wasn’t place to let a word pass through, just a grunt for satisfaction and another grunt of approval as we nodded to each other.
Little Manuelito was eating with arms around the “mast” with an already downed the first three pints of soda and was working on the half empty or half full of the second one depend on how you see things.
With the tiger calmed down by throwing it food as fast as we could, now was time to open the container that Joe’s wife had filled with buffalo wings, settle down with our backs resting on the side of the boat, and beer bottle in one hand and a wing on the other munch like a full bellied cannibal will go picking the small leftovers of the last cooked missionary.
Little Manuelito for the occasion wasn’t allowed to eat his meal of predilection, beans, as being in a boat you just couldn’t step outside and away from the chocking fumes, if you know what I mean.
You will wonder why we didn’t talked very much, we really didn’t needed, we knew what the other thought after putting our lives, literally, in the hands of each other in Nam when we pick leeches from each other’s ass or plucking a sniper beading on the head of one of us.
Nothing glue together a bunch of guys that being ambushed, knowing that nobody would freeze, or hit the deck in panic leaving his buddies bare assed with Charlie fumigating our fleas with their rat-a-tat-tat spreading lead.
Getting bogged together down in swamps with some illiterate artillery idiot who couldn’t read the coordinates went on putting friendly fire all around you, or crawling inside one of those damn tunnels with knives and not hand grenades as not to ruin the possible papers that the big brass could peruse in the comfort of a mahogany paneled war room; those experiences gave each survivor a kind of symbiosis with his brother in arms that need no words to communicate.
Like Marty nearly imperceptible raising his eyebrows saying I gonna take a leak, or a wide smile on Manuel’s face precluding a fart, or a slight movement on a casually in the face of Joe’s left index finger telling you that a sniper was climbing a tree back you and better hit the deck before you kissed the bulled with Charlie’s name.
As the afternoon sun changed its shorts for reddish pajamas and the fish cooler full of gutted fish to be dealt between by now quite happy, contented and a little garrulous friends at the end of another well used journey…almost in unison we nodded to each other and began to reel in the lines to call it quits.
Yes we didn’t words to communicate.
Apparently “Wallop Bessie” didn’t either when Joe retrieving his mean three-pronged contraption, kind of tickled her and all hell went lose.
They said that the first thing you learn being in a boat to never, ever, no way, of everybody standing at the same time.
Have you heard about not rocking the boat? well…duh!!!
Joe’s like shot like that line in that Jaw’s film going straight for the boat taking Marty’s and mine with a mighty tug, and that fish was blind like a bat or just pissed off with Joe’s tickling because the next we knew it just hit the anchor chain and the boat moved towards the near sand bank.
Little Manuelito, the only sitting one, us other like a bunch of ballet dancers trying not to fall on our asses or hurt other intelligent part of ourselves nearly made, it not were for massive Manuelito misunderstanding the situation by thinking that we were being robbed of our chain and lounged half raised to the gunwale to hold for dear life with both hand the chain being pulled away from the boat.
Marty, by the bow, hadn’t no surface enough to hold him upraised as the boat perilously went with a canting wish on her side and launched his reluctant to get wet body into the waters. (Whatever you do that suckers don’t sink but maybe they make you wear them as a hat).
With the corner of my right eye I saw Manuel holding to the rudder like it was a long lost lover, he wasn’t willing to be as Marty was, a sea nymph.
We had lost Joe way back, well about ten yards and was swimming towards the boat with not a worry in the world, maybe the Barolo was giving him ideas of walking on water (did you know that 10 yards of sea converts to point double O forty-nine of a nautical mile, no? that will teach you for sleeping on math class)
When the boat inclination reached the point of no return for little Manuelito he just somersaulted over, still grabbing the chain hitting the water butt first which produced an explosion of water like you see in the pictures of atom bangs in the South Pacific,
By the time Manuelito hit the waves the boat had thrown past me the coolers and gave me an amiable push which, no being prepared for it, make me to furiously try with arm and legs to hold myself up, but mamma didn’t teach me no flying and I entered the water with an ignominiously splash.
By this time, the fish, “Wallop Bessie” or whatever had disengaged herself and gone leaving Manuelito hollering submerged up to his waist about he been drowning.
“You ain’t drowning your piece of fat beef” said the new arrived Joe still swimming and spluttering water squirts with is mouth in the direction of a hapless massive young man.
“Sorry, but I was afraid an pee in the water”
Joe suddenly got a gush inside the mouth and started sputtering like he had tasted sewer.
Marty and I were standing in the sand bank holding the coolers trying to fetch as many Coors from the water we could without letting go the boat’s side as it had going back to float as it should without the present company.
Manuel, dry as a bone, sat there, looking forward, trying not to laugh at us.
When little Manuelito farted in the water with a horrible gurgle sound we all started to hysterically laugh like it was the funnies thing we ever heard.
It make me to pee in the water too, or it was the Coors I was drinking at the time never stopping in my belly?
Of course we lost all the fish that were floating away up and down, up and down on the waves…like bouncing fish.
This is hillarious Georg. At least you save the Coors, and "Wallop Bessie" lived to fight another day. And...
"when we pick leeches from each other’s ass"
Will certainly bring unity to a group....Great story.
Oh, my gosh! I feel like I was there watching this whole incident unfold from the shore/sidelines with my bowl of popcorn and my own can of Coors. A great story,and a wonderful way to start my day. Thanks!
Brother, you have surely reminded me of many 'a fishing trip' I've been on! And I think you, me, and the Jersey Devil Ed should go fishin; what a trip that would surely be!
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