Reboot

The only crewman on the schooner was Jacques, the lean light-haired Frenchman who had waited on me. He told jokes all the time, which the Gnomes never understood. Jacques did though. I mean he loved his own jokes, so he was always giggling to himself. He’d tell a joke, pause for a couple of seconds, then start laughing. Harald and Frank were clearly annoyed with him because they thought he was laughing at them, but Jacques was oblivious to all that. He just kept on living in his own space as they continued barking at him.

Out of pity at first, I helped him with the chores and the endless pulling on “lines.” Later on I kept at it because he was fun to be around and I had nothing better to do.

“Remember,” he said while pulling on something, “everything must be taut. The magic word on a sailboat is “taut”. Taut lines, taut sails, taut muscles, ok?” He had a strong French accent. “Toot”.

“Why do they call them lines anyway? Or halyards? They’re ropes.” I was just watching him work at this point.

“Sailing terms usually come from an action on a boat. In this case, to “haul yards”, yards being the sail, get it?” He mimicked pulling…

“Ah,” I answered dumbly.

“So Robert…” He started.

“Oh no…”

“Two people are out sailing when suddenly a hand appears in the sea.

- What’s this? Says the skipper. It looks like someone is drowning.

- No, said his crewmate, it’s just a little wave.

He started giggling uncontrollably again. I smiled. Not at the joke.

We played a lot of cards. You play a lot of cards on a boat. I took all his money playing poker. He didn’t care. Never lost his smile. When it was sunny we sat out on deck somewhere talking or working on some menial task, washing up, whatever… If the weather was up, we’d head below. I liked it better above deck, though. I got seasick down there unless I was lying down flat on my back. A simple move like sitting up or even just leaning on my elbow could be devastating in bad weather. For me anyway. Jacques was unaffected.

“How is it that you can put up with this? I’m a fucking mess,” I said during a lucid minute in a bad storm. Getting seasick can be a seriously debilitating experience. It’s constant. You feel awful constantly. It doesn’t stop after you’ve thrown up like when dealing with your mother-in-law’s undercooked chicken. It weakens and turns you into a walking-crying-whining continuous bidirectional bowel movement.

“Practice,” he answered. “It gets better; you’ll see.”

“Practice throwing up? No thanks.” He smiled at me. “Why are you here, Jacques?” I was trying to keep my mind off the skewed horizon. “Seems to me you belong in school. What are you, seventeen?”

“I’m from a rich family, you know? I was good in school, well-behaved good kid, I guess. I got a little sick of that,” (leedel seek of zat).


He was skinny, average height, but strong; good-looking, big smile, happy blue eyes. Blond peach fuzz instead of a beard. “I have always been expected to do the right thing. I always did do the right thing I think. So I became a little bad. I left. I went on a trip around the world alone.”

“What do your parents think of that?”

“I don’t even think they worry, frankly. They know I’ll be back in school soon enough.” He said this with a frown, as if he was displeased that he hadn’t gotten the expected rise out of his folks.

Jacques kept a diary and spent a lot of his free time staring out at the horizon and smiling, jotting things down. He was a poet. He could spend hours looking at nothing, but he saw music everywhere and he turned that music into words in his little notebook. An optimist. Young poets are optimists. Older ones are not.

Bit mad too I guess. He talked to himself while drumming his fingers in the air, as if he was singing his words back to himself. 
Can’t be a poet without a little harmless madness.

A typical day at the beginning of our trip would look something like this: I’d wake up late and come out of my exceptionally cushy cabin. Cabins in boats are usually quite sparse, but this one was really comfy. I could stand upright, which is itself quite the luxury on a sailboat. I could fit all of my six feet two inches in the bed and there was plenty of room for my stuff. Mahogany held the place together in a perfect balance of reddish frames and the covers were feathers and fluff. Aside from the constant damp smell, I couldn’t ask for better.

Anyway, I’d get dressed and wander up onto the deck to see my friend already hard at it. I’d grab some breakfast from a buffet all set up previously by Jacques. I ate and had my coffee while he worked and the Belgians yelled at him. I didn’t do any work in the beginning of the trip. Frank said I didn’t have to work because I was a guest. I didn’t argue. I’m not entirely sure if I’m lazy or not, but I’m quite certain that I don’t like to squander my energy. But over time, I helped Jacques more and more. He appreciated it in a quiet, calm way, as if he’d be just as happy doing it alone, but he enjoyed the gesture in a “humanity is balanced” kind of way and he was fun to help. His smile cheered me up. It was genuine. Ear to ear.

Keeps you fit working on a big schooner. I take care of myself. I’m in pretty good shape, I’m fast, I can run for a long time and I can swim for days… I don’t smoke, don’t drink too much. I have good lungs. I can stay underwater for five minutes. But this work really had me breathing hard. There is always something to do. Besides the actual sailing-related work, we had to test the material, we cooked and washed up, there was the saltwater deck wash, nipping the buntlines, tightening the halyards, various repairs, removing rust wherever it’s found, testing the caulk seals, checking the pumps…

“In fact,” said Jacques, “if there is ever nothing to do, that’s when the hard work begins. Like scraping old varnish off the wooden handrail, or scrubbing the deck with a big block of hard soap. There’s an old saying with boats: once you finished painting the ship, it’s time to start painting the ship. Well ok, I heard it once. So it may not be an old saying.

But I heard it hard.”

I smiled.

___________

I loved being under water. I’m completely flattened by the beauty of the ocean. The colorful fish, the flora. Usually I jump in the water every chance I get, but on the Myriad, it hadn’t been possible because we hadn’t stopped yet. I waited for my chance and instead I marveled at the sounds. The sails clapping, the seagulls screaming, the water drumming on the hull, the wind tuning the rigging. The different creaks and moans the boat yielded as it glided through the waves. The bell. You could tell how the weather was by just listening to those sounds. A blind sailor can tell you how fast his boat is going or how the weather was changing just by listening.

Course, I never met a blind sailor.

We washed ourselves with seawater to save on the good stuff. Strange sensation. It’s a bit oily and leaves a film, but you get used to it. After a while, it’s perfectly ok. In fact, the salt acts as an irritant and rubs a layer of skin off. You feel very clean.

Sometimes while we played cards, the gnomes whispered to each other angrily. Fittingly, they never talked to us. Only yelled out orders. “Get that sail prepped! Where’s my drink? Go check the supply of candles! Stop that giggling and go clean the toilets!” It never ended. As days went by I began to have doubts about my new employers. I’m sure I could manage a boat that was owned by loons, but not if they were impolite.

And they stank.

They never washed. Never flushed. Jacques had to do it for them. They simultaneously popped out of their cabins in the morning while singing Nazi songs clad only in their shorts, sandals and socks. Round white bellies sticking out. Shorts above the belly buttons. Beige everywhere. Tiny hands flapping around, already pointing to things that Jacques would have to get to work on.

“It doesn’t seem to bother you at all that our bosses could very well be lunatics?” I asked Jacques once while we sat on the edge of the boat, in front, legs dangling above the water. There was a net there and we sometimes stuck our faces in it to look at the dolphins racing below or to escape the harsh sun.

“No,” he said. “I’ve seen it before. It takes a special kind of person to take to this kind of life, and very often they’re a little quirky.”

“Quirky? Are you serious? These guys are in the deep end of the quirky pool don’t you think? I wonder how they made their money.”

He smiled.

“Perfume industry.”

“Yeah, right.”

“No, that’s what I overheard. Family business handed down to them. Anyway I don’t care. Once I was on this fishing boat and -you know- we worked very hard and the captain would come out in the evening and sing opera songs and play the violin during the meal. Another one yelled out scripture. And on another boat, the captain talked to his dog, and I swear the dog talked back to him”… He turned to me and smiled. I smiled too because his face was now covered with indented net marks.

“He’d ask the dog if he thought we were going in the right direction.”

“Did the dog answer?”

“Most of the time actually. Smart dog.”

“Ok, so why are you doing this? Besides wanting to piss off your parents I mean.”

“I like the silence. If you stare at the water long enough, you get answers. You ever notice that? When you watch TV, your brain turns off, you actually notice it when you turn off the television, your brain starts humming again, and when you’re out here looking at the sun flashing off the waves, you go into overdrive; you produce.” His hands were active again, as if he were conducting.

“Yes, sure, I know that. My dad used to say that staring at the wall wasn’t a waste of time. We would look at my dog and how he’d just sit there and watch the paint dry. He said that the dog was smarter than we were. He would agree with you I think. So what do you think about?” I asked, “When you stare at the wall…”

“I’m writing. I write short stories that I hope to build into a book someday. My parents want me to go back and be “the student.” He said punching two pairs of fingers up in the air. “But they’ll understand. I’m happy with this. Why are you here, Robert?” he continued; and it was my turn to give an evasive smile.

“I’m still working on that. My last girlfriend told me I was running away from something. But I think, I hope it’s more searching for something than running from something. I’m a bit like you I guess, looking for things to happen to me. Easier to make that happen if you go find it. Can’t just sit at home staring at the wall. Can I read something you’ve written?”

“Sure. I’m working on this now.”

Ethereal fog wails through alabaster sails

Surge out and plunge within

Following angels flashing

Over one more swell

In the shifting, broken mirror

Today’s sighs knell

Tomorrow’s stake,

Jump in, follow her wake

You can always find your way back

“I like it. You could sing that maybe,” I said. “Don’t like the word ‘ethereal’ though. Seems to me that word is in every poem ever written.”

“Yeah. I fancy myself the next Morrison. But not yet… So Robert…”

“Yeeees, Jacques…”

“Mayday, mayday, we are sinking. Please respond.”

“This is the French Ship Gracieuse, we have received your message.”

“Mayday, mayday, this is the sailing ship Myriad. We are sinking, please respond.”

“This is the French Ship Gracieuse, understood.”

“Mayday, mayday, French Ship Gracieuse, we are waiting for your response.”

“This is the French Ship Gracieuse. What are you thinking about?”

And he went back to looking at nothing and giggling.

He took out ‘ethereal’ later on though.