A deep sea squiggle drawing of mine
Don’t go fishing if you’re the only girl on an all guy boat…
My dad loved fishing. Any spring, summer or fall day he had off you’d spot him heading across the meadow to Pudding Brook, or taking a short drive to the Atlantic Ocean.
Fishing was his spiritual, meditational headquarters. He had a high pressure job in Boston, after all.
I was a moody high school student. A polio survivor who was tromping her way through teen life with the aid of a pair of long leg braces and long wooden crutches. So what’s not to be moody about? Every morning I would apply rather too much makeup and tease my hair to absurd heights, but nothing could disguise the paralysis and its attendant equipment.
Nonetheless I did love adventures.
One fall day in a rare burst of daddy-daughter bonding my father invited me along for a deep sea fishing adventure with some business friends. In a moment of obliviousness as to what “boatful of good fishing friends” might entail, I happily accepted.
We rose before dawn on the big day. My first mistake:: Drinking lots of fresh squeezed orange juice with breakfast. Daddy’s first mistake:: Hustling right by the rest rooms after our thirty minute drive. He noticed that we were the last arrivals, and didn’t want to delay an extra few minutes. I guessed, later.
I met the boring middle aged fishing aficionados, boarded a small cabin cruiser sort of boat. I thought, kinda without the full cabin. More sleek, too. And off we throttled! Seagulls yelling down, salty wind flying through my long hair were great from where the fellows had offered me the best seat, a chair bolted to the center of the deck. Higher than any other seat. I felt like the Queen — for thirty minutes. Just about when they were dropping their lines in and settling down my bladder began to sing, reminding me of its needs. I ordered it to subside.
It did, briefly. Next wave was loud rock. Next arias, with orchestras that kept getting louder. And so on fill it hit a thundering opera. Despairingly I observed that every moment took us further from shore, where all those beautiful, smelly, public loos were sitting empty.
At last I could stand it no more. I asked the friendliest of them where the head was.
Maybe he thought I had two heads. He ambled towards my dad.
My aunt and uncle had a big cabin cruiser. Below decks lay a neat set of bunks, a small kitchen, and a little bathroom — the head. Because this smaller vessel was superficially similar I was in hopes of there being a like arrangement below.
My dad joined me
An icy dagger shot me through with his words. “Emme, there is no head.”
I stared back, mouth agape. “So what do you do when you have to go out here?
“You go over the side.”
Giving no pause for the suggestions my brain should have been sending, I asked to be shown to a place from which this going over the rails could be done, — like how anybody wearing a pair of heavy, sticking-out-straight-in front-of-them leg braces could possibly balance a bare bum over the narrow wooden railing. For that matter, how any female could.
Long story short: Eventually I feigned sea sickness, and the guys — who by then knew the details — with long faces awaited the sad announcement from the boat’s operator, Junior. Who I thought was kind of hot.
“We’re heading back in.”
Sigh. I nearly made it to the glorious seaside public restroom before my bladder began trickling. How embarrassing! My dad’s best friend had stuck with me. “You know, I raised four kids and now have a bunch of grandkids,” said this round, bald, cheery looking Irish fellow. “No reason to beat yourself up. You’re doing fine.”
Wow, what an odd dad-daughter bonding day..
Since my backside was damp we put tote bags on my seat. All the way home my father was quite apologetic, a side of him I’d never seen before.
Yet, I would now ask…. If it had been a boatful of women with me out there, wouldn’t they have had a bucket along? Then heaved the contents overboard — loudly singing sea chanties!
This remembrance is from a prompt in my summer writing course last August, via Story Circle.
Rising Over the Smoke 