Calendula

Sometimes I eat like I want to break myself.
Every time I see my brother,
his head seems to have gotten smaller. He's probably shrinking it
to avoid losing it to his "man-eating succubus" of a wife.
Do I have green stuff on my face? I was rubbing lemon balm on it. Sweet Melissa
My nephew poses with a $100 bill. His mom comments, 'you better put that back!'
Sometimes I feel like I don't have a partner, but The city I live in? Really?
My grandma is waiting, looking out the window, for the oil people to come fill her tank.
When the cop took my Florida license and my parent's address into her car last night, I remembered Murphy's law.
More faster-er, Netflix promises.
Mary Donahue has eyes that defy the plumbing of their depths. In a few moments' assay, one feels they may have reached the inner ken. Then the iris' swirl outward
expanding exponentially like spheres of dark cloud, spreading wings and surrounding one. One attempts to remain extant simply by maintaining the gaze. The iris' swing back down to eye size like diaphragms, winged layers lappingover each other. Did that happen? one asks oneself.
Maintaining the gaze--painful as the sun through thick clouds--one falls into the trap of pride--I can hang. The eyes are glassy magnets, and there is some kind of prize within, if one could just...
You have good eye contact; you're articulate, she tells me. You've qualified for the real interview.

In my dream, I throw a party at someone else's house, get sweet with someone else's ex-fling.

I ask the old Quechua mamichas,
This plant, it's for eating?
They laugh haughtily--es para las vacas, they tell me. For cows.

Making Our Debut On The Unsuspecting Gentry of Charleston, SC

The morning looked like something from up North. Wind ripping, gray, gray skies and pale light, colors gone flat. The Nerve was bumping quite a bit at the dock. We put on some long sleeves and started towards the office. One of the fuel pumps was stopped at something like $734. Just down from our spot were some of the largest yachts I’ve ever seen. Not sailing yachts, mind you, but monsters--more than a hundred feet long, several stories of opulence--drawing much more, I knew, than $700 of fuel. A golf cart was parked on the dock next to one of the yachts, a certain “Hi-Banx.” I figured the golf cart belonged to the marina, was kept here, at least. Then I saw the Hi-Banx emblem on its little hood, and looked up to see the crane atop the stern, where two jet skis were also resting. There was also a bike rack with some bikes, and a little Hi-Banx welcome mat at the bottom of the gangplank. We could see in a port to the engine room. It looked like the boiler room of a high school, except that it was brightly lit and spotless, and the tubes were painted fire engine red.
Another golf cart came rolling along, and I felt pretty sure the two guys inside were marina employees, probably headed to our boat. We kept going. At the end of the concrete fuel dock, we stepped onto a beautiful teak floating dock that bent around to the buildings of the marina. As we passed the side window of the office, I saw a cute girl inside with the computers and office gear. We stepped in the front door, and I was struck with the sensation of being inside--rugs on the floor, glowing TV, climate-controlled air. The girl wasn’t nearly as cute from the front, having to deal with us at 7 am. She was willing, if not glad, to answer our questions. We signed the papers for one day and headed back out.
The Nerve looked very small when we got back to her. It seemed hard to believe we were living on board. The dockhands were waiting with the golf cart. One was about our age, chin strap beard, bored look, same Charleston City Marina windbreaker and Sperry Topsiders as his partner, who was older, smaller, with glasses, some kinda Rudy/Forrest Gump thing going on, slightly garbled speech. They brought the thick diesel hose over, handed Josh the nozzle. He started to fill the Nerve’s tank while I grabbed the gerry jugs. The older guy was counting off gallons at the pump. He told Josh when it hit fifteen (the tank held 20). Josh pumped a bit more, a bit more. Then pink diesel came bubbling up out of the chrome inlet and onto the white fiberglass of the cockpit. Josh cursed, and our friend with the chinstrap tossed him a soft chamois. He dabbed up the diesel as best he could, leaving a faint pink stain. Then he handed the employee the nozzle, wrapped in the chamois, cradled like some kind of metallic infant--a cautious, two-hand affair. I unscrewed the cap from the first gerry jug and dropped it onto the concrete. It promptly started to bounce away in the whipping wind, towards the edge of the dock. Instinct took over, and I summoned some unknown reserve of NFL-grade agility, sprinting after it and sliding down onto it like I was recovering a fumble. I got up, surprised as hell. I didn’t know I could move like that. I started to laugh really hard, there on the blustery docks of the Charleston City Marina, while three languid faces looked on. I filled up the gerry jugs, careful not to overfill.
Our new friend with the chin strap took me to the office in the golf cart, to pay for the gas. As we passed Hi-Banx this time, I noticed a chef, in full, Hi-Banx- monogrammed attire, leaning on the railing, surveying the morning. In and out of the office, more receipts signed, and finally the formalities were over. Josh, Miss Manerva and I were able to smile and relax, revel in the fact that we had made it to Charleston, South Carolina. We ate some puffed wheat and parmalat in coffee mugs. Then we packed up our little Rubbermaid “Action Packer” with fresh clothes, soap, and shampoo, and walked down to the showerhouse.

The Nerve Goes Wild, Plugs On Reluctantly- Making The Approach to Charles-Tone

Waypoints on the GPS seemed perpetually just out of reach, due to the somewhat exaggerated scale. The little boat symbol would move a quarter of an inch across the screen, and we’d still have hours to go. The plan was to get to Charleston that night. As the sun went down, I took the wheel. The wind was very favorable, so I told Josh we should put the sails up. He was pretty reluctant to put them up in any case where two hours of good, usable wind did not seem to be guaranteed, cases where he might have to take them down again soon. It only took about five minutes to put both of them up. I was the happy-go-lucky Sunfish sailor, willing to give any bit of wind a chance. Josh had mostly only been sailing on his dad’s 44’ Reliance (which he built in the backyard), the kind of boat that requires plans. Float plans, conditions checks-you don’t just head up to the lake one afternoon with it on the roof of the minivan. I thought about those days in the Sunfish then, as the Manerva heeled over hard. The wind was perfect, thirty degrees off the port bow. There was going to be no standing on the keel and hauling her back upright, should something happen. I didn’t really think the Nerve could tip over, but who knows? Enough wind, hitting her just the right way…She didn’t tip, she just turned uncontrollably into and across the wind. The sails tore across to the other side, the boom like a deadly swing with a giant’s baseball bat. The jib lay plastered across the mast, making me cringe. Josh stood up in the cabin. “What happened?”
“Nothing. We’re fine.” Fine, and headed due South into the dark sea of the last two nights. After about five minutes with the wheel cranked to port, she finally started to come around. The sails whipped across again, like some giant man shaking out his canvas sheets, really beating the dust out of them. Or shoving the Nerve’s mast over with one finger, taunting us little people, threatening capsization.
Well, that was really stupid of me, I thought. (Losing control, not the giant man). Then it happened again. Twice. The last time it was dark out. We could see the lights of Charleston (when I got us facing North again). The lights of the channel became clear. The channel sticks out from the harbor almost fifteen miles into the Atlantic. There was no way I was going to make this official-we could easily cut in closer and not have to worry about shallow water. We dropped the sails and got in the channel maybe 3 miles offshore. It looked like a jumbo jet runway, red and green lights all the way. There was a lighthouse on the shore to starboard. Several spotlights at its base flashed in succession, like some colorless attempt at a Close Encounters of the Third Kind display. As we came between the two dark humps of land, I felt the Nerve slacken her pace drastically, and start to bounce about. The GPS screen told me we were making 1.3 knots. It told us, from its tide charts, that the tide wasn’t supposed to be going out for another couple hours. It also told us that it was about eight PM. (It was 11:30). I realized that there wasn’t any way we could have scheduled differently. We were just going to have to go till we got there.
“So, yeah, Charleston tonight…”
We were turning left at a fork by another flashing lighthouse. The green marker to port got closer. It came alongside us. Then it stayed there, flashing at us every couple seconds, mocking. After about ten minutes, we put it behind us and put the sails up. She heeled over on a reach and we gained…half a knot. A boat came along with what looked like a traffic light mounted on the roof. It was the coast guard, we realized as they passed. Another one came along half an hour later. I wasn’t sure we were going to be in port tonight. I hadn’t realized how far inland the city actually was. At about 1:30, I saw the houses, right on the water, immense three story doll houses lined with clumpy Seuss-like palm trees. Someone was jogging, someone walking their dog. We almost turned up the wrong branch of the river. The little boat on the GPS still had time to decide which way it was going.
Then, the expanse of orb-lit concrete fuel dock of the Charleston City Marina. The wind was still ripping, and the water to a lesser extent. It was clear that we were going to be comin’ in hot. We chugged along parallel to the dock, the water pushing us gradually over to it. Josh got the bumpers ready, and we eased up to the dock, smooth like extra virgin. We stepped onto the concrete, which seemed to be grounded in the very crust of the earth. We looked at the nearest fuel pump, but it wasn’t on. Then we hit the hay, the warm wind whistling over the Nerve, rattling the stays.

Deep Blue Part Deux

Leaving St. Augustine, Josh said one thing he had learned from the cruising lifestyle was…shitty boat names (Memories passed by at that moment). I meant to make a list of all the ones we came across-believe me, there were some plain stupid ones. That night, I watched the mast slicing through the handle of the big dipper for about four hours straight. I woke up again in blue water. It was like being at Seabase, and waking up when your head bumps against the railing of a dusky. It seems you have skipped dawn in the oven-like green tent and the runny crepe pancakes and the wading out in cool morning sargassum, yelling back at the crew members who are dillydallying in the campsite. It seems you have awakened to find yourself already fifteen miles out, in that deepest of blues. And it’s just as incredible as the first time I saw it, two and a half years before, riding out Kemp channel with Captain Joe, Marky Mark, Leah, Sugarloaf, Gumby, Levesque, and Derek Pate, no cushions on the bow seats, ass bones taking a beating through the green water. Then, Mark and Leah, wise old island mates- “Is that not the most beautiful blue water you’ve ever seen?” Polarized glasses making things unbelievably vivid, a piece of plywood sticking out of the water… turned out to be a sailfish. Waking up to the clicker on the trolling rod is even wilder. It’s like you’ve been keeping half-alert during your four hours of sleep, waiting on that noise. I barreled up the steps and into the cockpit, reeled it in whoopin’ and hollerin’ to find nothing but a slightly chewed- up skirt. I did not, by any means, think that the two Spanish Mackerel we had already caught would be the only catches of the entire trip. Then, somewhat abruptly, it was evening again, we were about thirty miles off of Charleston, and I was halfway through A Farewell To Arms, enjoying it very much after two previously unsuccessful attempts to get into it.

Deep in the Blue

Sleeping in shifts eventually turned to living in shifts. Read for a bit, fall asleep for a couple hours, then wake up to take over driving and start it all over again-a cycle that could eat up three days pretty quickly. During the offshore run from St. Augustine to Charleston, Miss Manerva rode down the fronts of swells that were about eight or ten feet tall, all day and all night. These guys were with us for the greater part of the three day leg.

We might have dreaded starting our shifts. It was a scramble to get anything you might want to do during the next four hours done, or ready to be performed in the cockpit, at the wheel. The one being relieved would step down, the new driver taking the wheel and setting down his water bottles, the bag of craisins. The one being relieved would stand at the bottom of the steps, looking up at the new helmsman, and ask “Are you hungry? Do you want some espresso? Wet Mango (energy drink)? Wake me up if ya need me.” And then it was just you and the Nerve. A few minutes before, you were dreading starting your shift with every ounce of exhausted will in your body. But sitting down at that wheel, you feel purposeful, fulfilled. You are sailing a boat 1200 miles up the East coast.

Alone at night, then, leaning against the railing, things get weird. The vibration of the motor is like a back massager spread out over the entire stern of the boat. With it going at 2000 rpm virtually 24-7 the entire trip, it becomes a steady drone. You sit there, in the red light of the compass, dozing. This dozing is just slightly less irresponsible than dozing at the wheel of a car-after all, you’re in the middle of the ocean, with nothing around, traveling at about five miles per hour. Your head begins to droop, sometimes staying down for a minute, then pops up. This happens a couple times, but the last one snaps you awake, opens your eyes all the way. You stand up, slap yourself in the face a couple times. The mango energy drinks don’t seem to do anything except give you a very short-lived (as long as it takes to drink the can) sugar buzz. Even the espresso seems to just make you feel physically uncomfortable, like you should be lying down on a bed.

One night, I was thinking about things when I heard some birds chirping over the noise of the motor. It seemed like maybe just a sound between bumps in the motor, a sound that could fit in the clickety-clackety rhythm but wasn’t actually there. I began to hear the beat of a song sometimes, perfectly clear, and somehow in sync with the 2000 rpms of the motor. Josh said that as the sun rose one morning, he heard the sounds of morning at Seabase-alarms, birds chirping, Scouts singing songs and crazy staff members yelling at 7 am.

St. Augustine Part III-

We headed to the little pedestrian tourist street wanting ice cream. I got that feeling I get in Florida. The sun’s heat is like a yoke on my shoulders. I shuffle along, feet barely leaving the pavement. After a time, then, the release-my head seems to lighten, my legs start to move on their own. The motion becomes fluid and I gravitate towards food, drink, bright displays. We walked through the screen door and back to the ice cream counter of the old-fashioned store. We tried some flavors and decided on their famous butter pecan. Back on the street, the ice cream ran down our hands quicker than we could eat it. Wonderfully big bites of waffle cone started to come off, with intermittent wrist licking.
“You know what we need?” Josh said.
(pause) “Meet some girls?”
“Well, yeah, but we should pick up a bottle, then meet some girls and head back to the boat, grill out, drink it up.”
“Sheeeeeit.” We circled the small touristy district, which was also the historic district. Buildings from the 1600s were decked out with banners for Bud Light and bright plastic junk for kids. An entire store of fuzzy lizards on wire leashes, here in the oldest continually inhabited city in the country. And not a single place to purchase liquor? We headed into a no-name-brand-sandals-and-boardshorts beach store. Techno music bumped. A gay employee greeted me. I headed to the back wall where the sandals were. My Kinos had been reduced to ripped, broken flaps of leather, whisking across the linoleum. The no-name sandals were twenty or thirty dollars.
A group of girls was in the front of the store. I saw, from behind, a wonderful, slender body in a bikini top, with an enormous tattoo I couldn’t make out. When this girl turned around, speaking in French to her friends, I felt something I haven’t felt in a while. When I was fourteen or so, I would see a girl, or look into the eyes of a model in a picture, and think that was it-superlative beauty, a perfect design I could look at forever. It happens with cars, paintings-anything designed to be even remotely aesthetically pleasing. I would listen to “Scar Tissue” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and it would sound better than anything else ever had or ever could. I had been telling Josh a few days before that I think I’ve become jaded, that these feelings don’t really come to me much anymore.
I’m not really sure we made eye contact. I think she was making a sweep and maybe hit me with those paralytic eyes. I was wearing sunglasses, regardless. She left with her friends. Josh and I walked about thirty blocks in the afternoon sun to ABC liquor. It took me a good twenty minutes to decide what to get, while Josh waited outside. We had grilled steak, potatoes, and rum, and fell asleep on the deck, looking over at the Bridge of Lions and the orange-lit waterfront.

St. Augustine Part II- That's humble

In the marina shower room, an old guy shuffled in, moving in a way that hurt to watch. He took his shirt off to reveal a lanky, hunched form. Another patron was standing in the mirror, in another crisp polo, slicking back his hair. The old guy started garbling something like “Its so hot, It’s been so hot since the operation.” I got in the shower and enjoyed the hot water.
Within minutes of stepping into the sun in my thick cotton polo, it seemed to be soaked. We walked along the main road for a bit, then turned down a side street. Lush greens were everywhere, along the stone street and the wrought iron gates. Spanish moss was in the trees. At an intersection with another small road, a few construction workers were shoveling. The guy closest to us had one arm. He paused as we passed, looked at me, and said “What’s up?”
“Hi,” I said. I had been at sea for a time.
We wandered around the residential streets for a bit more, then headed in the direction we knew ‘town’ was. Flagler College appeared like a mountain. We took note of the coffee shop and the bookstore, and pushed on to the hardware store. The storefront looked like a Norman Rockwell painting- a Radio Flyer wagon loaded with tools, shiny beach cruiser bikes. The sixty-something man there talked to us like we were characters in Home Alone or Blank Check, buying a gallon of bleach and paper towels. We walked another block to the Post Office. For some reason, the line was out the door. What day was it? We headed back to the bookstore. I flipped through an obscure art book, then a fishing book. Pictures from the eighties- Caribbean deck hands grinning over nine-foot marlin, teak decks and gaudy names like “Screamer.” I looked as long as I could, till my stomach was folding over on itself and the images didn’t make any sense.
After eating at the coffee shop, we crossed the street to the massive structure of the College. While we were standing inside writing postcards, we got to hear the beginning of the tour. The building was originally the Hotel Ponce De Leon, one of the most luxurious in the world. Guests stayed for three months at a time, during which spouses slept in different wings of the hotel. The circular mosaic design on the floor of the main entrance was the only instance of imperfection and asymmetry in the entire hotel. A single tile is a different color than the corresponding ones around the circle. Every other tile, every brick, every bit of clay in the entire structure was designed and built in perfect symmetry. Ponce De Leon knew that only God could be perfect, so he made this one tile off-suit to represent his humbleness.