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The Devil

As Halloween approaches, I’ve decided to bring some of my seasonal stories back “from the grave,” so to speak. This one was from October of 2022. Although strictly fictional, it is based in part on some real events, attitudes, and behavior.

You’d be hard-pressed to find any seafarer, fisherfolk, or plain coastal types without some horror tale on the water. It just goes with the territory; salt water envelopes most of the world and is dangerous. 

Lurking beneath that calm tropical paradise you’ve vacationed in are currents, tides, rips, rocks, tidal flats, and reefs. These might all be known hazards, but that doesn’t mean that they are less deadly. Circumstances and bad luck can be the dividing line between inconvenience and tragedy. And that’s just the stuff you can make plans to avoid or correct.

There’s just a ton of stuff you can’t plan for: rogue waves, sudden squalls, or engine failures that put you at risk on lee shores. Then there are collisions with unseen objects and illness at sea. I could go on, but I think you get the idea. It’s no wonder that hidden in every sailor is a tiny little superstitious knot. It might not be as apparent as a refusal to sail on a Friday. Or no bananas on board, or not whistling while you set sail, but it’s there. But without a doubt, the most dangerous element at sea will always be the human element.

Name Changes? Oh No.

Where I lived on the coast, it was considered bad luck to change the name of a boat. But, if you did, many boatyards followed procedures that seemed more like heathen rituals. They sure didn’t come from anything Baptist, Catholic, Congregationalist, or Methodist.

Libations would be poured to Neptunas Rex and Davy Jones. Coins under the masts would be added. After repairs, they are carefully put back or eliminated in exchange for a completely new set. And of course, the boat would be thoroughly cleaned fore and aft. Sometimes this would not be enough.

Thrice Warned

One of the Allens from over to the cape purchased a very smart lobster boat third-hand. He did this against his wife, father, and brother’s wishes. He’d been thrice warned.

The boat had started life as a workhorse lobster boat built by a well-known builder out of Boothbay. She’d worked the waters of the mid-coast for years as the Hattie Carroll. Then, about 1974, she’d been sold to a New York City Banker. He had her gutted and fixed up as a fancy boat to tour clients around during the summer. She was what we call a lobster yacht these days. 

Then, without any to do, he’d had a signmaker slap some vinyl letters on her. The new name was ” The Cheek Of The Devil” in a fancy script. The boatyard had suggested that a bit of ceremony would be nice. But he wanted what he wanted, so he got it. No ceremony, but it was the talk of the harbor. Using the Devil in a boat’s name was not typical and not thought lucky.

He didn’t enjoy his boat long. A fire started offshore, and all aboard went into the bay. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been enough floatation devices aboard for all the guests, so he yielded his floatation vest and drowned. 

The boat survived with severe fire damage but was salvaged and put up for sale.

The Devil

She lay in Spinney’s yard for two years before being sold. I wouldn’t know if the reason was the fire, the owner’s death, the name, or a combination of all three. But she sat in the back of the yard, nevertheless. To locals, it was the Devil.  That should have been enough to discourage any local from buying it. 

History and name suggested that nothing but ill luck was involved in that boat. Wash it in a bathtub of holy water from Saint Jerome’s, or do whatever hocus pocus you wish, and none of that would help. My father-in-law, the Cap’n, put it succinctly enough, ” I wouldn’t allow any of my kin to sit in its shadow, much less step aboard.”

Lobster Boat Races

The Devil sat there until Jacob Allen went looking for a cheap boat with fast lines that he could pour a high-power engine into for lobster boat racing. The Devil fit the bill. And over a long Maine winter, he worked to rebuild the boat into his dream of a fast racer. 

During the spring, his trial runs seemed to indicate that he’d be a contender in any race he entered. Unfortunately, Jacob was not the type to go full speed ahead, only at a race. He’d run circles around other lobster boats in the local harbor gang he belonged to. He took pleasure in almost swamping small craft he considered to be in his way. Jacob wasn’t well-liked.

Jacob was known to infringe on the territories of nearby lobstermen. He was closely watched until, one day, he was caught. The first time you get caught, you will likely pull your traps and find a half hitch in your line. It’s a warning that your trespass has been noted. Do it again, and the penalties will go up. 

The Devil proved as successful as Jacob believed it would, and victory was frequent. Now I do not know how plush the prizes are these days, but back then, it was peanuts. You raced for the joy and pleasure of it. Jacob also raced because he loved to rub other skippers’ noses in how fast the Devil was. In a family of quiet Mainers, he inherited all the ego.

Thief

I was helping out at Spinney’s boat yard that September. It was time to be hauling out summer people’s boats, and I overheard Spinney talking to my father-in-law, the Cap’n. They both agreed that Jacob was heading for a fall. They quieted down when I walked up. But it was common knowledge that Jacob had been robbing traps, and something was bound to happen.

Things get slower as the weather gets colder. Lobstermen spend more time repairing and making new lobster pots ( or traps), repairing their gear, and taking care of their boats. But on Halloween morning, the blast rocked the entire harbor as the Devil blew up with Jacob Allen aboard. The official report said Jacob had ignited a puddle of gasoline while starting his boat. A death by misadventure, I guess. But knowing people understood that Jacob Allen had been a scrupulous man in caring for his boat.

Murder was suspected but never proven. There wasn’t enough of the Devil or Jacob Allen left for much of an inquest. Just the mutterings of people about the enemies he’d had, and someone finally canceling a grudge hard.

At the coffee shop in the morning, there were comments about how the boat had been ill-fated from the start. Then, more quietly, someone muttered that the Devil had certainly known his own.

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Season’s Turn

The season has slowly been turning from lush, warm late summer weather to chill fall. Right now, I am enjoying yard work and clearing the garden. These become my favorite type of exercise because I know that soon I’ll be bundled against the cold, and looking to the woodpile for my exercise as I bring wood in daily to feed the woodstove.

Meaning in the Work

I hate gyms and prefer to get my exercise through “thoughtful” labor. And that is hard to do outside in the winter. Winter used to be a time for working in the wood lot. I’d be cutting down and sectioning wood that I’d later take the maul to for splitting. However, I no longer have access to the wood lot, and an aging body no longer wants to put punishing hours in bucking trees into drums for splitting. I still split lots of kindling every week, though.

Last night I sacked out early after most of a full day spent finishing the garden harvest and clearing out the debris of the gardening season. About a very small basket of late onions, and what seems like hundreds of the final tomatoes of the season. What’s left? The last small tender picking of kale leaves that are still growing, and the Brussels sprouts that are still developing. By the time I was finished for the day, I was sweaty, a bit scratchy, and definitely tired. Rather than exacerbating the tiredness into overworked muscles and strained ligaments, I’ll take a slower pace today. My wife and I will go to a bookstore with a cafe, and I’ll exercise by walking up and down aisles, and lifting a hot latte.

A main difficulty, as I age, is finding activities that keep me physically and mentally involved. My work with wood as a carver, and my garden, are large contributors. But also heating with wood. It’s not just the physical aspects of stacking and loading, but also bringing it in. Anyone with a woodstove will tell you that there is an art to heating, wisely, effectively, and safely with wood. My desire to keep the physical and the mental linked is why I find the gym so tedious. Its also why every winter I struggle to keep enough physical activities and wind up with a ceaseless search for good involving exercise.

Towards a Philosophy?

If there is a philosophical part to this, it’s best summed up in this quote from Bishop Fulton J Sheen. I may be twisting his meaning a bit to fit my purposes, but I find it relevant: “If you do not live what you believe, you will end up believing what you live.”

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Circle Line Cruise

Daily writing prompt
How much would you pay to go to the moon?
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When I was a kid, a Circle Line cruise around Manhattan always seemed to be on the agenda for a school trip. A fast search on the internet showed me that the Circle Line still exists and still takes cruises in and around the NYC environs. It’s a fun and even demure way to spend an afternoon in the City. And yes, you can take note of the capitalization of the C. It’s a habit even sixty years in New England has not scrubbed away. It’s typical for New Yorkers to elevate their home to the most rarified heights. We’re a bunch of egoists.

You’re from Where?

There is an issue, however. Last time I visited, I grabbed a cab to get into town from the airport. The cabby asked me where I was from, and I said, “From here, New York.” He laughed and said, “No way, you don’t sound like a New Yorker!”

I was so angry that I probably turned a shade of fuchsia. Upset? Angry? You bet! Although I consider myself a New Englander, there remains this deep-down acknowledgement that I am from New York City. Or as the old saying goes – “You can take the boy out of New York, but you can’t take the New York out of the boy!”

I almost had to get another cab as the discussion waxed on. Finally, I won on technical points when I told him where in Washington Heights I had lived, and which schools I had attended. Before he let me off, we had bonded because of a mutual hate of the high school we had attended – good old George Washington High School- G Dubs.

Fly me to the Moon?

But to get to the prompt. Go to the moon? Why would I do that? I’ve already been to the top of the Empire State Building. I’ve groveled around in the dives of Greenwich Village in the old days. And been a habitue of SoHo before it became a playground for wealthy and dumb elites. Go to the moon and visit what clubs/ Socialize with whom? And see craters, when I could take the cruise and see that magnificent skyline?

Besides, go to the moon and suck in recycled air? Do that when I could stand in Midtown at rush hour, and breathe in the fumes of a New York City traffic jam?

No, I think it’ll be the Circle Line cruise. It’s also cheaper.

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Still?

Daily writing prompt
What alternative career paths have you considered or are interested in?
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Yes. Still. That was the answer to his amazed response that, at seventy-nine, I was still working. My Pulmonologist is a great guy to talk to, and I kind of enjoyed surprising him with this nugget of information. Currently, I work as a station manager for a small Access Television organization. They call me the executive director, but I insist that now that I am part-time, I have little time for being executive and have to spend my time keeping the business running. There is no time for the annoying game of filling organizational slots on a table of organization.

In addition to this employment, I am still carver in chief of my small marine carving studio. About my continued work activities, I fall in line with a longer line of Carreras’, who just kept at it. If you are capable, willing, and interested, age can be just a number. Then, too, there can be a need. Income is nice when you need to buy stuff.

Now, this gig in television is only one of the ways I transformed myself for the world of work. I’ve been a folk performer, surgical technician, anthropologist, Teamster, UPS supervisor, Government program director, and lots of other things. Need, as well as opportunity and interests, have driven career directions. I am sure that many of you reading this are nodding your head. You do what you have to do to keep your head above water.

Career expectations? I don’t know. Next year, when I turn eighty, I might consider a new frolicing detour into other types of employment. Raconteur? Philosopher king? Maybe bull shit artist extraordinaire?

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Food, Glorious Food!

Daily writing prompt
What food would you say is your specialty?
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Part of the pleasure of growing up in New York City was the variety of available cuisine. And no, I don’t mean expensive restaurants. It could be good stuff off the cart Downtown. Find a spot against the street lamp and gobble it down. Visit the delicatessens and sample the wares, or visit one of the neighbors, and get stuffed with dessert treats from Italy at Christmas time.

If you wanted to restrict yourself to one cuisine, one tradition, you had to do it by an exercise of sheer willpower. What a waste!

When I was young, my father worked as a superintendent of an apartment building in Manhattan’s Washington Heights neighborhood. The building was a United Nations of cuisine. You could walk down a corridor on any floor and smell the aromas of any number of cuisines.

World World Wide

I was early on introduced to goodies from Central Europe, Norway, Germany, the Caribbean, and Asia. And no, I did not care for some of them. I was not into excessively hot stuff, and Lutefisk was never something I cared for. But my father, the Merchant Seaman who’d sailed the world, was insistent that I try it all. It was as much a part of being an educated person as a formal education, he insisted.

What sort of effects did this early exposure have on me? Well, it was wonderful preparation for my career as an anthropologist. An informal rule in our trade states that people you can’t or won’t eat with you don’t become close with. Food is an extremely important factor in creating social bonds.

I may not be able to win a trivia contest on international cuisine, but I can pretty much sit down at any table and enjoy the menu.

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Red Ball

Boston is a deary port in March. Fog, rain, and maybe some old rotten dirty snow banks were the decor of the day. But I was deploying with my squadron to recover a space capsule – one of the Gemini. Her letter sat unopened at the bottom of the duffle bag, and I just did not have it in me to open it. Later.

It hadn’t been the fastest of relationships to develop. It had started the summer before. When I had been bumming around Maine. I had pulled out the guitar at a birthday party I had been invited to and she had glued herself into the circle that formed around me. I was doing circles in those days – Boston, Portland, and Baltimore. Everytime I hit Portland she seemed to appear. Sometime around September the vibe got real, and we became a couple.

It sputtered, blew out, relighted, and finally blew out around the time I went to Navy Boot Camp. On leave after training, and before reporting to my squadron I returned to Maine to see if anything remained. For a long weekend there seemed to be an explosion of trust, affection and deep involvement.

Two weeks passed after that of unanswered phone calls and letters.

I had no more arrived at Quonset Point than the orders to report aboard arrived. Off we went to board the Wasp. That afternoon the letter arrived. things were so rushed that I shoved it into the bottom of the duffle, feeling a bit numb, and quessing what it said. After boarding things happened fast. The ship had a appointment to make. After settling in and eating I hit the pipe rack bunk in the squadron berthing area and slept dreamlessly.

The roll of the ship, and the sounds and vibrations of a large vessel at sea woke me early. I put on my dungarees, and chambray shirt. Grabbing the letter I headed up to the flight deck. During the night we had traveled fast and hard leaving inshore New England waters behind, and making progress to the south. Sometime in the night we had entered the Gulf Stream.

The Gulf Stream was like a river in the ocean, you could see its flow fore and aft and from port to starboard for miles. It was there that I first saw flying fish. Oh, I had seen them in documentaries and heard about them from my father and uncle, but this was the first time actually seeing them. Off to port the sun was rising like a red orb.

I pulled out the dear John letter asnd read it as the sun rose, the fish flew, and the song ” Red Rubber Ball” echoed in my mind:

[Verse 1]
I should have known
You’d bid me farewell
There’s a lesson to be learned from this
And I learned it very well
Now, I know you’re not
The only starfish in the sea
If I never hear your name again
It’s all the same to me

[Chorus]
And I think it’s gonna be alright
Yeah, the worst is over now
The mornin’ sun is shinin’
Like a red rubber ball

And the worst was over. I was much too busy in the following weeks to dwell on it.

I never saw her again, the mesh of my life rewove without her in it, and I’d have to dig around old boxes of letters to retreive her name.

What remains is the memory of that morning on the deck of an aircraft carrier watching the sun rise.

Thanks to John Holton whose post stirred the memory pot and encouraged this post. Based on an actual event at sea, and in my life. I’ve fictionalized parts of it. But the ship board memories are exactly as they happened.

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Judy’s Number Game: number 95!

And the number is: 217

A small dog standing on a concrete staircase leading to a dimly lit basement or storage area.
A relaxed tabby cat lying on a colorful crocheted blanket draped over a wooden chair.
  • We put a new hatch on the outside access to the basement this spring. Max was overjoyed that it gave him a way down and up to investigate. He’s afraid of the indoor steps.
  • Both cats adore the afghans my wife’s grandmother made.
  • A fountain somewhere in Massachusetts – I found it interesting enough to get a photo, but I am really a bit underwhelmed by it.
  • Weather brewing up to the nor’east.
  • The flowers of sanguinaria ( AKA bloodroot) one of the first flowers of spring here in New England.
  • The first cuts have been taken on this very small carving of a schooner.
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Deep

Marcus: And then I was on top of the workbench. It was a horrifying sight. Tools all over the place. This stuff he calls “chips,” and what did he call it? Sawdust? It was awful. I skidded down from there to the safety of the floor. I mean, it was like coming down from the bureau in the bedroom, but worse. And there he stood laughing, and spouting some nonsense about it was like me “Coming down a mountain, and slipping on the scree.” What the hell is that? What is a mountain?

If my litter box looked like his workbench, Mom would change it.

I may have to rethink this whole thing of being the shop cat. It’s dirty work.

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Devious

Daily writing prompt
What’s something most people don’t know about you?
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In November of 1970, I had a severe “adjustment crisis to adult life.” Someone tried to kill me. Not long after that, I cleaned up my act, did the straightening up and flying right routine, and generally became a Boy Scout. I also wallpapered over the previous aspects of my life. By the time I became a student at Boston University in 1971, I had a new me.

The Cover Story

By and large, most of the people who met me after this knew little of my Folkie days, my being a Pius Itinerant, or having an alias and living the ragged life in Greenwich Village. While I appeared a bit rough around the edges, few knew. None cared.

Laid Back, Staid and a Bit Bland

By the time I started work as a practicing anthropologist, my new cover story was in place and so good that even I believed it. After all, I was not supposed to stick out. I was working with communities, creating cultural programs and studying them. It was about them. I wasn’t supposed to be the focus. They were.

The first bit of my cover blew one night in 1988 on the stairs leading up to Georgetown in Washington, DC. I was on my way back from a club, and the music had stirred old memories. My alter ego stirred. He wanted out. I began a process of merging who I had become with who I had been. It was slow and not easy. Lots of people who knew me just looked at me oddly if I mentioned it.

The Band-Aid Comes Off

The clutch came when I started the blog in 2018. The blog was supposed to be about carving, and all the earliest posts are. Then I started seeding in stories. The stories were about my crazy friends, life in the sixties on Boston’s Beacon Hill, and being on the Road as a Pius Itinerant.

The Band-Aid got ripped right off after that. I had a new horoscope made, and it all flooded back.

So if you look at the contents of the blog over the years, about a third of the stories deal with the former life. Sadly, most of the people I write about are now dead—misfortune and bad habits caught up with them. I thought about packing Charlie up and heading out for a grand memory tour. A week spent in my old haunts. But all but one of my old group had died, the entire maps of the communities had changed, and there was nothing to go back to; to some extent, that’s the rationale behind the stories. Give some continuing life to the wacky life we lead.

So that you know, there is more in the vaults. But there are Top Top Secret seals on that stuff. You know, you have to recite a tongue twister to gain access to them. Being that I was young and stupid, I don’t come out looking so good in some of them.

There was that time in Ohio…nope, not going there!

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Influencer

Well, you know me. The eternal quibilator. Willing to quibble this, that, or anything. So it should come as no surprise that, when asked the question of defining success, I quibble, even prevaricate! I have my standards to maintain!

Fleeting Glory

Look, we can always go by the tried and true standards of the past century. You know wealth, physical attributes, notoriety – the good old standbys. But as one of my favorite Napoleon quotes goes, “Glory is fleeting. But obscurity is forever.” So many who think they have pegged success wake up as unremembered has-beens ten years down the line. You made great headlines in the Wall Street Journal in 1922, but by 1992, you were not even a footnote in the financial history of that decade, and were forgotten totally by 2022. Fleeting indeed.

Look, Tookey was the big connection on the street where I lived in Boston in 1965. He was insulted that newcomers failed to realize how important he was. MJ, acid, black beauties, hash? He had it. He’d walk into the Harvard Gardens and get treated as royalty. After two years as a guest of the state, he walked out a forgotten nobody with a hang up on some shit smuggled in by a crooked guard. Fleeting indeed.

One of the students I knew at college was all busy with committees for this and that, led demonstrations, and belonged to the best clubs. If there had been a poll to choose the most likely to succeed, he’d have won. The size of his ego eventually pulled him down because office politics often favors those with “street smarts” over good looks, fancy suits, and proper credentials.

Find an Alternative

I’d suggest that rather than concentrating on glory, you concentrate on getting good at fulfilling things, become a good cook, guitar player, nurture a family, grow a garden, study poetry, learn to be a good mason, or just love your neighbor.

Don’t go nuts on being the big wheel; concentrate on becoming a worthwhile and valuable citizen. The popular theory is that great people propel significant events. The opposing side of this is that an involved, educated, and concerned public counterbalances the excesses of those who see themselves as mighty.

It’s Like a Boat Dummy

I spent lots of time sailing around boats, seamen, and the water. Sometimes I see things in light of those experiences. It’s fun to make the sailboat go as fast as you can. It tips over and “heels” with the wind, and everyone gets excited. But go too far and it capsizes, turns turtle, and sinks.

It’s the centerboard or keel extending below the water that helps counter the effects of the wind. In a society that’s us. Not too flashy, maybe not A-listers, but we steady society and our community.

But despite the counterbalance, an idiot in command, or at the tiller, can endanger the vessel. In history, that equates to wars, collapses, Declines, and Falls. Those who lead through positions of great influence and power may not indeed do what is best for the whole. They may trying to get the boat to go as fast as possible, despite the danger of capsize.

So what’s my measure of success? Moderation and balance. Deep achievement rather than flash. Careful thought rather than flashy commentary. Having worked as an anthropologist in a community setting, some of the most successful, impressive, and worthwhile people I’ve known have been dairy farmers, florists, housewives, doctors of medicine, dancers, and chefs. They were active in their community and contributed generously to society.

So let me leave you with another Napoleon quote: “Ten people who speak make more noise than 10,000 who are silent.”