11,428. RUDIMENTS, pt. 547

RUDIMENTS, pt. 547
(haulin' and trawlin' on the wine-dark sea)
I kind of always hated the

ocean even though I went

there often enough; thanks

to my father and his incessant

need for the sea. He had an

Evinrude outboard motor,

6 or 8 horsepower, and many

were the Saturdays he'd put

it in the rear of the station 

wagon and drive, with me

along, not that often by choice,

just more like a chore, to some

'Captain Bob's 'or something

place where he'd rent a  -  

believe this  -  a rowboat for

the day and strap the motor

onto the rear. Without fail, it

was always the same; 8 hours 

out on the open water, bobbing

around with a small outboard 

and some gas, humming through 

the little waves and rises of the

sea, maybe sometimes a mile 

or two out. Many more than

once we had a coast guard ship

come out to us and someone

on  a megaphone screaming at

us to get back in towards shore;

we were too far out for the

flimsy craft and engine we had,

or we were in larger boating lanes

unsafe both for us and others. It

was crazy. My father never cared.

He's re-do the very same errant

scenario the very next time out.

Fishing? Yeah, I guess you could

call it that  -  some days we get

five or ten, blues or stripers or

fluke or flounder (which is what

we nearly always close to doing

anyway. It was a fluke we never

drowned). A lot of times the best

of the day was crabs  -  some days,

honestly, we'd get 50 or go in one

or two burlap bags, scapping them

up along the basis of the bridges

over the inlet. I hated all that  -

between flopping fish slapping

around on the bottom of the 

small boat, to bags of crabs,

equally alive and foaming,

probably as they gagged to 

death slowly in the burlap or,

if they survived  - which many

did  -  to come home with us 

and be thrown into vats of 

boiling 212-degree water to

get torched to death and then

ripped apart as food. It was all

very disgusting and hideous to me

and shouldn't have happened to

a dog (As the saying goes; though

I certainly value dogs a million

times more than these gross 

scenes). I never understood people,

just as I never understood the total

and unappended glee my father

got from these hideous and

dangerous behaviors. High-risk

boating included. Being 8 or 9

years old, or whatever it was,

you don't get much choice in the

matter. I was constantly being

drafted in as Popeye's unwilling

assistant. One time way out

we got what must have been

(one wants to say 'we caught,'

but of course that's senseless) 40

blowfish  -  a stupid, tasteless

species of nothing, but a fish

which, in peril, puffs itself up,

thus 'blowfish' from looking

like a regular fish to, instead,

resembling a large, spiky,

softball. Of course that also 

increases their size, and their

roll castor, around the small

deck and underfoot area of a 

'God-damned' rowboat. We 

were soon enough unable to 

even move about, in the midst

of, as we were, 40 kickball size,

terrified fish. As I recall, maybe

that horror was my last time out.

I was so done, and furious too!

From then on, I'd do whatever

it took to stay away  -  'No, can't

go, have to go Barbie-Doll clothes

shopping today, Dad, with the 

guys, and then get our nails done.' 

I mean, WHATEVER it took.

-

Yeah the maritime life just wasn't

for me  -  all that sand and gentle 

surf, all those lovers out together 

with basket beach-lunches; all those

wave swimmers and Dangling-Dons

riding their boards and skies. I'd

rather chew leather. My father

persisted in all this, long after me,

and did eventually find other kids,

neighborhood and more, to do all

this with. Fishing poles, swim suits,

sandy bags of crabs and writhing

fish. Have you ever watched a

real sea-fish die? It's pure terror

in their silent eyes  -  a minute 

before, they were dawdling in the

ocean, in love with the watery

cosmos, the deep, and then some

jerk shafts them with a trickery

hook through the lips and hauls 

them violently in, and then proceeds

to rip that same hook, barb and all,

out the lips and throw you down

on the slimy deck to gasp and gag,

flip and flop, in wide-eyed, waterless

terror until you suffocate slowly.

-

Oh, did I mention how then they rip

you apart with knifes, scrap off your

scales, tear open your gills, probably

chop your head off, and then thinly

fillet you, all so they can fry and

eat you while declaiming the good

and fresh delicacy of taste and aroma

you represent? Life's a real joy.

-

I go to the ocean now, and still hate

it. People fight wars and die over shit

like this  -  watery quadrants, unseen

and invisible, claimed by one or the

other side of which band of miscreants

owns the present coastline. Guns and

gunboats, the entire range of weaponry

and death, afloat on the same wine-sea

as the one that trip up Odysseus. Why?

-

I was never the kind to be easily

entertained. I never went to concerts

or crowd venues and the three times,

honestly, that I have, it's been miserable.

I've always been ore than happy to

drive people to their concert destinations

and find something to do for four hours

or whatever  -  Beacon Theater, Count

Basie, Holmdel, Madison Square

Garden even, whatever, but no

thanks for the rest. If I'm going to

partake of something, it's pretty much

going to be mine. Not much else will

do, and I certainly don't need or seek

to be entertained. That's for mob

monkeys, in my mind. I'm a reader.

The solitary sort. And I don't know

what any of this fishing and boating

crap was called, but I hated that too.

Keep it far away from me.

-

My feelings about fish and maritime

things are about the same as my 

feelings about meat : nasty, cruel, 

not needed, and horrid. Everybody 

thinks a fish  is a cinch to kill and 

eat, because they're stupid, slimy 

blobs. I don't buy that theory. I 

know we've all gotta' eat something, 

but my choices, I hope, stay mostly 

to grains and seeds, as much as 

I can anyway. The simple, quiet life,

that's me. One of my friends never ate

chicken, just that alone, and his

reasoning went : 'I never eat 

anything that has its pecker on 

its face.' I always thought that

was pretty funny, and good too.

If you're a chicken.

-

I don't know what 'Eden' was like.

If it was by the coast, or if there 

was water, fish, and all that. (It

never seems so, in the stories). 

But whatever food choices there 

may have been present, I'd bet 

they were pretty circumspect  

-  even with all that 'take 

dominion over the animals 

on land, fish in the sea, and 

birds in the sky,' or whatever 

the quote was  supposed to be. 

I never believed it for a minute.

,