Drifting
By Harry Buschman
I work nine months of the year for a man some of you may know as Buster Silver. He is not an easy man to work for. In the first place he’s a comedian, and no one would laugh at him if he didn’t have an army of writers telling him what to say and how to say it. He’s got two shticks in his repertoire, one a sort of double take he stole from Jack Benny and the other a nervous fiddling with his necktie -- probably from Oliver Hardy. I’m on the staff of his weekly sit-com and it’s a labor of Hercules to keep him going for 15 weeks, as a matter of fact it takes nine months.
The rest of the year Justin and I get away from it all. We were companions, Justin and I, (I said were, didn’t I?) had been for three and a half years. It’s rare that such relationships last as long as that, but, like all the others I’ve had, it broke up in a bitter fight last night. Until then we rented a bungalow in Biddeford, Maine -- it’s a seaside village made up of people who pay no attention to each other let alone two gay men from the city. I was born near here, the son of a preacher and a browbeaten mother who learned to fear both God and my father in equal measure.
With Justin gone I decided to get out of the
house and maybe go fishing for a
while. It’s a good way to be alone. I ran into Frenchie Davenport, an old
Quebecer who has a boat yard near the town dock.
“Fishin’ .... you? Y’wouldn’t be kiddin’ me now would’ja?
“Yes I’d like to go fishing. I’d like to take the afternoon off -- get out of that two by four bungalow I’ve been in all summer.”
‘Just you, or you and what’s-his-name?” He was referring to Justin.
“He’s gone, Frenchie -- c’mon
I need a boat and tackle, that’s what you’re
in business for, right?”
“Striped bass are runnin’.” He was getting down to business. “I hear they’re all over Odiorne’s Point -- plan on usin’ worms or eels? I got worms. Fella over t’Biddeford caught a twenny pounder just t’other day on worms. How much time y’got?”
“If it’s all the same to you I’d rather use a lure. I got the rest of the day, that’s all. Look, Frenchie, I’m not looking to break any records,” I pointed at the sky. “I just want some sea air and sun.”
Frenchie filled his pipe slowly. When he does
that I know he’s making a deal.
“Tell you what. You top up the tank in the skiff over there, yeah that
one, the ‘Porpoise’. There’s a rod and reel and some spinners
in the aft locker -- whatever y’catch’ll be mine, see.” He struck
a kitchen match on the seat of his pants and nonchalantly lit his pipe. It always
amazed me how he could do that without the match going out in the wind. A drop
of clear water appeared at the end of his nose and hung there suspended like
a crystal bead. It would stay there until his pipe went out.
“The tank almost empty, Frenchie?” I knew what he was up to.
“Nearly full I’d say, just top it up at the dock pump.”
It cost me $67.50 to “top up his tank.” At two dollars a gallon that’s over thirty gallons. The decal on his tank said it held forty -- it was a Yankee stratagem that Frenchie knew backwards and forwards. It was a lesson I should have learned long ago, but maybe I could turn it to my advantage -- maybe I could use it in a skit with Buster Silver next season.
The “Porpoise” was a nice little skiff. It could hold two people comfortably and yet could be easily handled by one, and as I pulled out from the dock, Frenchie warned me .... “If yer runnin’ her at full throttle don’t shut down all at once, y’hear? Y’know about the stern wave, don’t’cha?”
“I know, I know, Frenchie -- I was born
here, remember?” It was good he
reminded me, I forgot completely about the stern wave. If you’ve ever been
in
a small boat with an outboard you’re aware that the prop sets up a stern
wave
that follows the boat at the same speed and if you shut off the engine without
slowing down first, the wave will overtake the boat and roll right over the
rear transom.
“If y’catch more’n six I’ll let’cha keep one,” was the last words I heard him say.
I ran at full throttle until I reached Odiorne’s Point then I slowed down to a crawl looking for a likely spot. If you know bass at all you know the bigger ones are found near the mouths of estuaries, they fatten up on eels and it’s not unusual to hook up with one you can’t lift into your boat. It was late morning by my estimate, not the best time for catching any kind of fish, but you never know -- you can always be surprised by a late riser. I snapped Frenchie’s rod together and fitted the reel, he had a nice collection of spinners so I picked out a shiny green one. A lazy striped bass might mistake it for an elver. I cast out fifty feet or so at the mouth of the tidal creek that drains the swamp at Odiorne’s Point and got a hit even before I took up the slack.
Within twenty minutes I had six striped bass,
none under five pounds. I was
exhausted. Even though a bass is not a great fighter they resist being netted
and dragged into a boat. I stored them in the insulated fish bin and disassembled
Frenchie’s rod, I noticed I had drifted considerably north of the Point
and I was thinking of starting up the outboard when I noticed the fog. It came
rolling in from the east on a soft warm wind. It was undoubtedly the herald
of a warm front and there was something heavy and ponderous about it.
It was still clear in my immediate vicinity, but I quickly lost sight of land. The rising sun, now rather high in the east, quickly dissolved into a pearly shadowless light. Slowly I lost sight of the horizon to the east and the fog settled in thick around me -- I was suddenly alone on the sea. I’d lost sight of land and couldn’t remember in which direction it was.
I was convinced that wherever the shore was I was leaving it far behind. I was sure wherever I looked was eastward, and that if the cursed fog ever lifted there would be no land to see at all. I would be lost on a boundless ocean in a rented skiff that was never made to brave rough weather. I listened for Whaleback Light but all I could hear was the monotonous slapping of the water against the blunt bow of the boat. Did this mean I was still making headway? Was I distancing myself ever farther from home? Why on earth couldn’t I hear the lighthouse!? Wasn’t it supposed to be there to guide lost sailors in time of trouble?
Was it growing dark, or was the fog growing
thicker? What would happen if
night should come and find me here? Would the fog lift by nightfall? I tried
to recall my boyhood knowledge of these waters off the southern coast of
Maine -- the tides were swift and coupled with the westerly winds that normally
prevail, they could drive a drifting boat far out to sea. Had the tide turned?
I couldn’t remember. Careless of me! Yes, it was growing darker and whatever
wind there was died to a whisper. Just the heavy lapping of the sea against
the sides of the boat.
I had no choice in the matter. I was condemned
to wait in an open boat for a
change in weather. I consoled myself by thinking how much worse things could
have been -- if the seas had been even moderately rough, the ‘Porpoise’
may not have weathered them -- or it could have foundered on the rocky coast
and been at the mercy of a murderous surf. A sound off to my left startled me
and just within my range of vision I saw a roiling of the water. In its center
a dark shape emerged and then quickly withdrew, but the motion of the surface
revealed the presence of something monstrous moving below me. Then all was still.
Had it seen me -- would it come again -- and most of all, what had it been?
I was at the mercy of a pitiless environment and all that kept me alive was
this thin shell of a boat -- it was my universe. Until now I had trusted it
to protect me from the dangers that lurked in the waters around me, but that
protection could not stand up to a rough sea.
I felt as insignificant as I did as a small boy in Biddeford looking up at the night sky. Billions and billions of stars had looked down on me without caring a whit whether I lived or died. It was worse now, I was truly alone -- there was no friendly light behind me with the sounds of my mother in the kitchen. In this frame of mind I slid off the stern seat and put the flotation pads on the low after deck. I curled up on them, knowing that in this position I would be invisible to anyone or any thing looking at the boat from the water surrounding it. Better out of sight, I thought.
I tried to relax. I had been on the edge of panic for what must have been an hour. Now I was on the edge of despair, it seemed to me if I was to get through this I would have to pull myself together. It was difficult because I knew I was drifting .... drifting, and one of two things would happen; I would founder on the rocky coast of Kennebunkport and the thin shell of the skiff would be smashed and shredded, or I would be carried out to sea on the tide never to be seen again. I could see no alternative. The lifting of the fog was my only hope, and from my curled up position in the bottom of the boat there seemed to be no chance of that. Everything I touched was cold and clammy, wet with a residue of fog. I took off my coat and covered myself as best I could and I began to sing ....
It’s a habit of mine. Whenever things
overwhelm me I hum to myself, it turns
off my fears and keeps the bogeymen at bay. I’m not musical and I can’t
remember the words or the tune of the song I hum, but it rubs off the roughness
of the outside world and brings back the recollection of better days. I began
the habit the day my father caught Pamela and me in the cornfield back in Biddeford.
We were twelve I think, and we hadn’t really got around to doing it but
we were blundering along, well on our way. He was furious, “To think,”
he shouted, “that I, of all people, have fathered a degenerate son.”
He was a Presbyterian minister in Biddeford, and I think it was his fondest
hope that I follow him in the ministry. He rarely spoke to me after the incident,
and after mother died he didn’t speak to me at all. It ruined me for women
-- although, who knows .... I might have turned out the way I am in any case.
I thought of her again, Pamela I mean, and I remembered I hadn’t liked
what I’d seen, and I wondered if she felt the same.
The humming, combined with the gentle motion
of the ‘Porpoise’ lulled my
senses. I tried to imagine myself somewhere, anywhere, other than where I was
-- I chose a garden in Virginia I had visited last year. I recalled the magnolias
and the sweet smell of new mown grass -- I must have dozed off, for I was suddenly
awakened by the sound of surf breaking nearby -- I opened my eyes and the first
thing I saw was the shadow of a short mast on a rough wooden deck in front of
me. I was no longer in the ‘Porpoise’ but in a rudely built boat in
the shape of a coffin. I looked up into a cloudless blue sky! How could the
weather have changed so abruptly? I sat up and looked over the side of the boat
and saw the horizon, a sharp line against the sky, then I turned and saw the
beach. It was not a Maine beach. A long white stretch of sand sloping up to
a line of grass topped dunes and a gentle surf drew a frothy white line along
the shore.
A man in a white beach robe stood looking at
me. He walked down to the edge
of the water just far enough so as not to wet his feet, and he stood there looking
at me, shielding his eyes with both hands. I waved to him frantically and absentmindedly
climbed over the seat to the stern of the boat intending to start the engine
-- there was none of course, only a short stubby mast holding a ragged dirty
sail which flapped lazily in an onshore wind -- it drew me inexorably towards
the shore until the boat was caught by a breaking wave, then it tilted and picked
up speed and turned broadside to the beach. I
was about to leap out of the boat when the man, now standing knee-deep in the
water lowered his hands and shouted at me. “You have no right! No right
at all.” My God, it was my father! Dead now these fifteen years! It was
the first time he spoke to me since mother died!
“Dad, it’s me! Don’t you remember me?”
He looked at me with no hint of recognition. “You don’t have a certificate. You have no right to be here without a certificate!” He waded out into the surf and turned the boat around so it headed back out to sea, then he pushed and ran after the boat until he was waist deep in the water. One final push and I was free of the surf and out into deeper water again. “We’re tryin’ to keep this place clean,” he shouted, y’gotta have a certificate, that’s all there is to it.”
He continued shouting and his voice grew fainter
and fainter until I could no
longer hear him, and as dreams will shift from scene to scene without a bridge
to bind them, I found myself in church trying to hear a Priest over the incessant
rumble of thunder. It occurred to me that whatever he had to say was probably
not important to begin with. Both images were replaced by the faint familiar
sound of Whaleback Light -- I recognized it immediately -- one long -- two short
at fifteen second intervals. No one born in Biddeford could forget the voice
of Whaleback Light. Was I still dreaming? No! I was back in the ‘Porpoise,’
my coat still covered me and looking up I saw the aluminum mast sway gently
in a rising wind. I raised my head above the port rail and turned my face in
the direction of the sound of the lighthouse. It was faint -- more than a mile
away, I guessed. The leaden gray of the fog had changed color, it was yellowish
now. If I only had a compass I could have fixed the sound of the light, started
the outboard and ran for home -- but I was sure I would never hear Whaleback
Light over the sound of the engine. I opened the locker under the back seat
and rummaged through it. There amidst the coils of rope, brass polish and empty
gasoline cans was a boy scout compass. Apparently Frenchie did his navigation
by the seat of his pants. I
shook the little instrument to make sure the needle floated and then, as best
I could, aimed it in the direction of the sound of Whaleback light -- about
two degrees east of north by my reckoning. I stuck the compass in my shirt and
started the engine and under full throttle headed off on that bearing.
I kept my eyes open as I approached the lighthouse.
Gradually I could hear
the horn over the sound of the outboard. I didn’t want to pile up on the
rocks that surrounded it. I remembered there was a buoy just south of the light
and I hoped I might pass it close enough to see it in the fog. I missed the
buoy completely, but the horn was louder! -- a regular pattern -- one long --
two short. It had to be the lighthouse! I was getting closer to the lighthouse!
The wind picked up and the sea grew choppy,
there were restless swirls on its
face, small whitecaps appeared and the bow of the boat pattered nervously on
the surface of the water as I continued on my bearing. The fog was backing off
to the east from a strong offshore wind. Suddenly I could see the little cupola
on the lighthouse, and the light itself suddenly swept around me. I was almost
on it! A rugged line of rocks, licorice black, became visible, remembering the
stern wave I cut the engine and turned sharply west into the harbor.
How placid it was! How peaceful -- a haven of calm in a sea of trouble. I could see children fishing from the grassy banks as I had done many years ago. There were fishermen drying nets and setting out bait traps. I thought of my thankless career in television? How empty my life had become, I had no friends, no lasting attachments, there would be no welcome -- no warm dinner waiting for me at home. I had the fleeting feeling that maybe my father would appear at the dock and tell me to turn around and sail out again -- “You have no certificate! You can’t land here without a certificate!”
Instead, I saw Frenchie Davenport, he was sitting in a lawn chair on the landing raft talking into a cell phone, the black briar pipe jiggled in his mouth as he argued loudly with someone on the line. He caught sight of me, put the phone away and got out a package of Granger.
“What’cha say stranger, any luck?”
He loaded the pipe carefully, obviously
intending to bargain over the catch. I had forgotten all about the fish.
I threw him a line while both his hands were
busy with his pipe and tobacco
and he swore at me. “Dumb landlubber! Never throw a line to a sailor when
he’s busy.” He stepped on the line and finished stuffing his pipe,
then he
picked it up and belayed it to a piling. “Throw me the aft line, dumbbell
--
y’can’t tie up with one line. I thought you was born around these
parts.”
“Sorry Frenchie -- I thought you might wait’ll I was tied up before you loaded your pipe.”
He grinned and scraped a wooden match with
his thumbnail. It flared and
subsided as he puffed his old briar back into life. Again, the little bead of
moisture formed at the end of his nose and hung there like a crystal earring.
“How’d the fishin’ go?” he asked again.
I got out of the skiff and stood on the landing
raft next to him. Instead of
answering his question I asked him about the fog. “Did you have fog here
this
afternoon? -- Down by the point the fog’s so think you can’t see more
than
twenty feet.”
“No way. Look for y’self,” he
pointed south and sure enough the Point was
clearly visible in the distance. “Don’t get fogs here in the afternoon
anyways. Come in the mornin’ sometimes, but they burn off by ten or so.”
“If it wasn’t for the foghorn I wouldn’t have found my way back.”
“Y’mean Whaleback?” he asked.
“Of course Whaleback. You have another lighthouse hidden up here?”
He cocked his head sideways then shook it. The little bead of moisture fell into the bowl of his pipe with a hiss. “Could’na been Whaleback -- dunno what you heard, but it warn’t Whaleback. Ain’t been a peep outta that ol’ light in twenny years, not since the keeper passed away.”
He looked from me to the ‘Porpoise,’
then puffing mightily on his pipe he stepped aboard to check things out. “You
sure you handled her nice and easy,
huh?” He checked on the level of gas in the tank then opened the insulated
fish bin. “Got six nice size bass in there, sonny. Catch ’em on spinners
did’ja?” He opened the rear seat lid and pulled out a burlap bag.
“Only six here, y’should’a stayed a little longer and caught
one for y’self.”
The last thing I wanted was a fish. I was torn
between what I’d been through
and the facts of life, I didn’t want any reminders of this afternoon --
I didn’t need any.
“Not in the mood for fish, Frenchie.”
I shrugged my shoulders and walked up
the ramp to the wharf, then I headed back up the dirt road to the rented
bungalow. There would be no one waiting there, no light in the window, cold
ashes in the hearth, no sound of children. Something missing. A terrible emptiness
-- coming home to a hollow house.
It was nearly dark when I got back, it had
been a long day and I couldn't
remember having lunch. I looked in the freezer and found a Hungry Jack meat
loaf dinner -- that would do, I thought. While it thawed I mixed a scotch and
water and went outside. The stars were very bright, very close, I could reach
up and feel the heat of them on the palm of my hand.
But they didn’t care, they didn’t care at all -- and worst of all, I didn’t care either.
©Harry Buschman 2001
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