Call Me Ishmael

Chapter 1

“Are you alright?”  She asked the question with a breathless urgency.  

“Well, no, not really.”  I could not bring myself to get upset or frantic.  I made up my mind that if I were going to sink in front of this lovely creature, I would do it with a quiet dignity, like the Titanic's band playing as that great ship slid into the watery deep.  I tried to stand up, but the boat refused to cooperate, and my tiny boat was no more.

I heard another voice, a man's.  From his throat, then, had come the shouting.  I instantly hated him, and searched the looming yacht for the speaker, ready to size up my rival.  I found only a vacant-faced man, leaning on the rail next to the blonde angel, goggling at me.  He laughed at her, and then at me, before laughing in a general way at the world at large.     

“What sort of dashed question is that, Finnie?   I mean, what with his boat sinking and all.  Of course he’s not all right.  A total cretin can see that.  One is most decidedly not all right in a sinking boat.”

The beautiful girl crossed her perfect arms and spun away from him.  “Niles, you’re a cad.  And who likes you, anyway?  Not me.”

Niles laughed.  I wanted to throttle the polished clot for daring to chortle like that; his Adam's apple bounced up and down, poking fun at the beautiful woman, this goddess whom I had fallen in love with so quickly and so thoroughly.  I chewed on my thoughts as he addressed me again.  

“Would you care to come aboard?  I mean, you are sinking, and there is the law of the sea and all that rot.  Even though this is just a jolly old lake, I guess, the sense of the thing would seem to be to offer one’s assistance.”   

“Thank you.” I spit lake water from my mouth.  I found Erie cleaner than it used to be, but the taste was still swill.  “Even with the PFD, it’d be a long swim back to the shore.”  Besides, I thought, I would be a little closer to the glowing Finnie.

“The what?”  Niles blinked.

“PFD.  Personal Flotation Device.  Life preserver.”  I tapped the synthetic, padded jacket.  I pushed the sodden plywood away from me and made my way toward the yacht.

Niles' eyes blinked as he considered my words.  “Oh, yes, PFDs.  Never wear the beastly things.  Too, oh, I don’t know.  Too something or other.  A bother, really, though we keep several on board, I suppose.  Just for emergencies, they tell me.  But you come aboard, at any rate.”

The Pequod had completely fallen apart, and drifted away from me in several pieces.  The anchor rope trailed out, long, lonesome, and completely useless.  I grabbed it as it drifted by.  Just as quickly I dropped it back in the water.  There was not much sense in pulling the anchor in now.  Instead, I paddled to the side of the polished, fiberglass, boat.  When I reached her, I saw she had a name, a real name, stenciled on the side and painted with real marine paint, the kind that doesn't fade or chip.  The yacht was  as different from my homemade boat as two things could be, and still be the same thing.  The yacht's name was Finnie’s Line.  A few feet above me, Niles walked awkwardly, clearly without his sea-legs, and made suggestions as to how I could improve my swimming technique.

“There, use your arms properly.  In this fashion, perhaps.”  He made swimming motions, and I swallowed a another good-sized portion of Lake Erie struggling to grab hold of the side of  Finnie’s Line as it bobbed about me.

“I could use a little help, Niles, if that is your name.  Perhaps you could find a rope, or something.”  I was at the side of the boat, but there was no ladder or step to ease my climb.

Niles put his hands deeply in the pockets of his pleated trousers.  I didn't need to see them to know there were no calluses on them, and he probably didn't know how to drop a line over the side of his own boat.  “Sorry.  Really, dreadfully sorry.  But I really don’t like to touch the lake water.  Germs, you know.  And really, I think you’re doing a smashing job.  Just work your way to the rear of the ship, and there are some steps back there.”