With a pinch of Lavender

Thesis Segment 2

Nov 01
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In the summer my father left for the harbor early, meeting Johnson or Bardier at the docks, talking in the salty fog that disappeared by midmorning. The weather wasn’t idle chat with the fishermen, and ‘red sky at night’ frequently set expectations for the day. My father’s office sounded like a robot. The three radios were tuned to different maritime channels, announcing craft warnings and weather reports. I liked to sit in the window seat of the harbor master building watching dinghies and rowboats navigate the cramped moorings close to the boat launch. On summer days when my mother needed us out of the house so she could make jam, or repaint the shingles, Chester and I sat at my father’s desk and listened to the robot voice tell us how many Knots the wind blew. On the wall there was a painting of a ship that my father said had sunk, the American flag on the stern unraveling in the wind. The only other wall decorations were a series of sticky-notes that held names and registration numbers.

Sometimes my father would let Chester and I sit in the front room with him and the fishermen and boaters that would stop by. We liked hearing them talk; sailing accents from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Canada, the fishermen turning their r’s to ah’s.  Johnson and Bardier spent their mornings in the harbor master building, I don’t know if I ever found out what their first names were. They were both locals whose families had lived in Havret Harbor since it separated itself from the neighboring town of Jeterton, sometime around the war of 1812. They shared a lobster boat because it was “wicked expensive.” Her name was Red Lady and their buoys matched with red horizontal stripes. Johnson and Bardier smelled like fish and cigarettes. The fish used for lobsterpot bait has to be a little rotting so the lobsters can smell it. Their waders had little bits of old cod and halibut stuck to the bottoms.

My father used to haul pots, but grew up in Castine, where he and his brothers and his father and his father’s brothers had gone to Maine Maritime to become captains and shipbuilders. Before that the Sillmans were the Cielmonts in Montreal who built houses. My grandfather was trained to make boats but made chairs; he had his own store full of benches and stools. It was the kind of store that out-of-staters would have their Maine conversation pieces shipped from. His brother Dodge who my father was named after moved away to Port Clyde work on lobster boats, an extra set of hands, earning money and building a reputation among the fishermen until he could afford a used boat. He found a retiring fisherman who sold him the Bella Donna, who was never renamed, and pots with buoys whose colors stayed the same. My father spent summers in Port Clyde hauling for his uncle. The string of pots reached far into the ocean, soaking in the colder waters. He worked in the sun with his oil overalls and no shirt, leaving his French/Irish skin to burn and freckle. His brown freckles stretched from shoulders to wrists where his gloved hands were red from work, and not from sun; his usually chestnut hair bleached, his nose constantly peeling. When he was old enough his beard came in brown and coarse, and the only times he shaved it were for weddings and funerals when a clean face was respectful.

My father spent one summer saving his money to fix up an old Boston Whaler; Sundays were spent in his uncle’s backyard, scrubbing, sanding, painting, and refinishing the decayed boat. The outboard was a gift, all fifteen horses. Sundays were a day for staying home. You didn’t have to go to church, but you couldn’t do anything else either. The whole state closed on Sundays, except for some of the Chinese restaurants, the kind that had signs that said ‘Oriental.’ My father spent most of Sundays in bed, and the afternoons tooling around the inlets and coves in his whaler, spots he could see from Bella Donna, but not close.

Friday nights were when the fishermen, crewmen and dockworkers got paid, my father and his uncle included. The streets, bars and harbor full of drunken port men. His uncle would be angry if he knew he had taken the whaler out after dark to see a private cove one Friday night, late in July, when the air started being warm. It was trespassing, if he was caught, and only if they were home.

Before he could see the dock, my father killed the engine, coasting through the dark and quiet water. He tied the wet and weedy rope around the dock cleat in a figure-eight, pulling it tight. Bilge water sloshed around his feet in the bottom of his Boston Whaler. He put the stern light pole behind the gas tank. The newly varnished seats were red and still sticky; the heat and water kept them from setting. The white flotation pillow with the black mildew held tight to the plank seats. My father fished his keys from the floor attached to his unsinkable buoy key ring. He stood on the seat cushion, holding his tennis shoes in hand and stepped onto the dock. The skiff bobbed when his foot pushed off, pointing the fore into the harbor.

My father sat on the dock, pulling his shoes on, his bottom numb from the wooden seat, barely braced against the pounding of the waves. His wavy hair heavy on his scalp with salt and sweat, rising with the breeze when it picked up. He stood, seeing that the lights were out in the big white Victorian house at the top of the hill that overlooked the cove. The cove and the house were owned by a family from Connecticut who came up for long weekends and the week of the Fourth of July. Their Sunfish lay on the beach, the sails still in their red sheath. My father walked across the beach, feeling the sharp rocks through his tennis shoes, thin from wear. The light at the end of the dock turned on. He climbed up the large rocks that sat between the beach and the pine trees sloping up the hill. His knees crunched old pine needles under them. He sat in the dark of the trees while a girl in shorts and a tee shirt walked down the dock. She leaned over his whaler, and shouted “I know your registration number now, whoever you are! I’m going to the cops, and you’ll get arrested.” She stood crossing her arms, waiting. “Really? You’re going to let yourself get arrested? How stupid are you?”

“Okay, I’m sorry, please don’t repoht me.” My father stepped onto the rocks.

“Because you said you’re sorry?” The girl kicked his skiff.

“Hey, come on now, that’s nowt nice.”

“And neither is going on someone else’s property when it’s clearly marked.”

“I didn’t see nothing.”

“There are signs on the trees over there, and both ends of the dock.”

“It’s really dahk.”

“Which makes it all the creepier that you’re sneaking around here.” She kicked his skiff again.

“Hey now, I just came down heah to see if they was any of the glowin jellyfish I heuhd about.” My father had his hands up.

“I’ve never heard of any glowing jellyfish around here.” The girl kept her foot on the fore of the whaler, moving it back and forth like rocking a baby cradle.

“Yeah, see, some of the fishamin say that in the summah around this time, the jellyfish come in the coves to spawn, and they glow like fiahflies but in the watah.”

“You’re putting me on.”

“No, sweah to god, but I don’t think they’ll be comin anytime soon from the looks of it.” He looked at the water, black except for the yellow reflection of the dock light.

“Well that sucks, especially since you’ll be in jail and won’t get to see them ever.”

“Hey, come on now, I really am sorry, what can I do?”

“You could…” the girl thought about it for a while. “You could give me your boat.”

“I can’t give you my boat, no way.”

“Hope you like jail.” The girl kicked the whaler again.

“Isn’t theyah something else I can do? I could give you a ride, sometime?” My father shoved his hands into his pockets.

“Fine, you have to give me rides whenever I want, for the rest of the summer.” She smiled and took her foot off the boat.

“I weuk fuh  a living, I don’t got time except Sundays.”

“Fine, Sundays it is Mr…” She reached her hand out.

“Dodge Sillman.” He stepped up to the dock and shook her hand.

“Nice to meet you Dodge, my name is Marian Webbly.” She stepped back, letting him get to his whaler. “See you Sunday then.”

“Yup.” My father unhooked the rope from the cleat and started the motor. Marian walked back to the house, turning off the dock light. He put up the navigational lights so other boats wouldn’t hit him.

When he got back to his uncle’s dock, the hems of his pants were wet, even though he’d rolled them up. His whaler made a light tapping sound, pressing against the dock with its rubber bumpers. He decided to wait until his pants dried before walking back to the house to avoid questions. He walked a bit up the hill to the main road.  Next to the lamppost was an old fashioned lobsterpot, arched with a flat bottom, a net slung in a round opening between pine slats, facing inward, like a navel. He could see where the lobsters would crawl in, and into the next room with the bait bag. The whole point of a lobsterpot was to get them to come in, the net would let the small ones back out, but the big lobsters would get stuck, only able to move backwards. The lobsterpot had two miniature pilings thrust through it, the cheap pine slats sawn in jagged circles. He felt that was wrong, since they didn’t even make wooden pots any more, they had to be made by hand, they had to be strong and well built or a fisherman could lose a whole string of pots.

My father wanted that lobsterpot. He didn’t know what he wanted it for, or what he would do with it if he had it. He crouched and tested it by pulling gently upwards; pushing his legs against the wooden platform it was screwed into. After checking to see if anyone was around and finding no one, he ran back down the hill and grabbed a wooden paddle from his whaler. It was supposed to be used in case the motor died, but he wedged it under one corner and rammed it, the old wood of the platform separating from that of the pot. He hoped no one would hear the creaking of the rusted screws, he didn’t know how he would explain it. When he got home later, he would tell his uncle that a drunken captain gave it to him. His uncle would know where it came from but not say anything.

Another thrust into the gap between platform and pot pushed the paddle a few inches deeper into the breach. The pilings didn’t come up, but my father didn’t want them. He was sweating in the damp July sea air, his dark shirt sticking to his chest as he used his weight to leverage the progress. After a few more shoves, he cracked his paddle and pulled the pot from the platform. He put the paddle back in the whaler, careful not to further damage it in the process. The lobsterpot was heavier than a few slats of pine and some old rope netting should have been, but it went under his arm as he walked with what he hoped looked like purpose and not guilt. The dark streets beyond the bright of the dock yawned at him. That’s how my father always remembered the night he met my mother; the night he also stole a lobster pot from the township of Port Clyde.

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Thesis segment 1

Nov 01
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I was sticky. The breeze came off the water and across The Beach. My mother poured the sunscreen on my back and rubbed it in. I looked at the overcast sky as she covered my neck. My eyes closed as her greasy hand wiped over my face. Chester crashed his pink tugboat into the sand, the dog watching.

“You’re done,” my mother said, “play in the tidal pool until I finish slathering your brother.” I stood up as she pushed the hair off my forehead. Over the wet sand to the long rock that broke up the beach, I climbed over the barnacles and into the cratered center. Squatted in the warm water hunkering my bottom to the rock, my knees were almost equal to my shoulders. I splashed the warm water over myself, trying to warm my skin against the late spring air. Chester stood so my mother could cover his knees and shins. His bushy brown hair already had sand in it. The dog smelled his back. Chester waved at me. Water squirted between my hands in his direction. Chester laughed. My mother zipped his red life preserver and stood up, pulling her long hair over her shoulder. She walked to my tidal pool with Chester.

“Boys, since this is a tradition, I think I should say something.” She took Chester’s hand and mine, pulling me up. The air met the water on my skin, causing my teeth to chatter. My mother continued.  “I am just so happy that every year, June first, we, as a family, go swimming in the ocean. It means so much that this is something we can accomplish every year, so that every other swim we take for the rest of the summer is warm as a pool in comparison.” She smiled down at us. My lips were probably bordering on purple. Chester climbed the rock and picked up a piece of light green kelp, pulling back my mother’s swimsuit strap. “Don’t you dare.” she said, not turning around. Chester giggled, trying to balance himself on the barnacles, his feet soft from a winter of shoes. “Don’t you do it Chester Arthur Sillman.” Chester let the kelp and straps go, pinching the slimy green leaf to her skin with a snap. My mother grabbed Chester around the middle, running to the water. She threw him in ahead of her. Chester bobbed in the water, kicking and splashing. My mother shouted up to me as I stood with my ankles in the tidal pool, shivering, “Come in TR, it’s not so bad.”

I wished she’d thrown me in too. Spring ocean water hurt to the marrow. Wading meant stepping further in, knowing that the feet that hurt would be joined by shins, and then knees. Wading was bones and skin and blood screaming, the body pleading, until numbness. Waiting for my knees to stop screaming, I submerged my thighs. Wading took hours, days. Chester splashed the dog’s back. Numbness reached my waist so I went under. Cold water on the face and head makes the lungs try to gasp. My eyes stayed open, the greenish darkness fuzzy with bits of sand and seaweed floating in front of me. I stood up, my lungs gasping, cold salt in my mouth. Chester doggy paddled towards the beach. Dragging my numb legs through the water, up The Beach, I made it to my towel. I didn’t understand how they could stay in so long. Small waves rose beneath my mother and Chester, big waves didn’t make it through the harbor. The dog jumped through the bits of foam, biting crustaceans.

When I warmed up and my mother and brother came out of the water, I took a green bough from the apple tree and tied my leather string to both ends. Like Robin Hood, I notched the outside of the points, locking the string in place. Because the wood was green it didn’t break apart when pulled. I made arrows with my leatherman, sharpening the points, notching the ends. I felt like a man, like my father, who went hunting in the fall with my uncles and his friends. I felt like a warrior, and a brave. I was going to kill, and bring home what I had killed. Other boys wouldn’t be men until their parents told them so, but I was.

Chester sat in the tidal pool, pouring water from a bucket and onto his boat. My mother sat in her beach chair, sunglasses on, her long hair hanging wet over the back, sand stuck to the ends. Her head was hanging over the back of her chair, air noisily coming in and out of her open mouth. Past the apple tree that hung over the sand, tiny and undernourished crabapples underfoot I went. I crouched in the grasses behind the tree where my mother took the dog to poop. The seagulls circled over the harbor, the tree, and the harbor master building. I took out my first arrow, firing it between the branches. It came back down. The gulls flew low, trying to get the mussels, clams and crabs at the low tide, finding old apples easier to pick up off the ground. One tried to land between me and the tree. I fired. The arrow hit it, bounding off. I notched another arrow as the gull started flying away. My arrow hit the gull between the wing and ribs. I didn’t it would actually work.

It squawked, wings not beating together, one fast, and one not completing the flap. I watched it hit the ground, further hurting the left wing. Blood colored the white feathers. The gull cried. The right wing kept trying to fly, but the left hung around the arrow sticking out of its side. I grabbed the gull. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.” I kept saying it. “I’m sorry I’m sorry.”  I pulled the arrow out, the blood dripping off the feathers, onto my stomach. Blood came out of it’s beak, the gull opening its mouth all the way, its small tongue like a red worm. I held it to my body, it would get better, I would fix it. “I’m sorry I’m so sorry.” It screamed some more, as I hugged it tighter to me. I whispered my sorries to it like a chant. The right wing pushed against my chest. The gull’s head moved back and forth, crying and leaking. My mother called my name. I couldn’t stop sorrying. Chester ran up the path behind the tree.

“Is it ok?” he asked. He reached his hand out to touch it. I jerked away.

“I’m fixing it! You’ll ruin it!” I yelled. A couple of tears fell on the gull’s feathers. They would help, tears and sorries would help. It would be fine. It would be great. It would come home with us and live in my room. I would have a gull and name it Derek. The gull screamed again, this time panting. My stomach and swim trunks were red with bird blood, white and gray feathers sticking.  Chester reached his hand out again, and I screamed. The gull screamed with me. The blood was warm between the feathers and my stomach. Chester would break it. I needed to fix it. I was sorry. I squeezed harder, the pinned wing pushing against me. My mother stood at the bottom of the path. The dog sniffed the gull. “I’m Sorry!”

My mother asked me to let go. I couldn’t.

“I have to fix it.” I said. She had to understand.

“Sweetheart, let it go, it’s dying.” She put her hand on my shoulder. I had to save it. I had to get it clean, the blood was making it sick, there was too much blood. I walked down the path. Chester was crying and my mother picked him up. I walked down The Beach towards the water. It just had to be clean. The gull pushed its wing into my solar plexus. The cold water sunk itself into my skin, biting me. Blood and feathers mixed with the dark green. The gull would get better. It lived in the ocean, it needed the salt. We needed to go under, to be clean, for the salt to polish us bright. My mother came up behind me and lifted me around my middle. The gull drooped. It was warm against the water. My mother’s arms pulled me backwards towards The beach. Screaming. I wasn’t clean. I was bloodied and feathered. My mother dropped me on the sand. The gull’s eyes didn’t close when its head hit the rocky ground.

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I Tree Safely Down

Apr 01
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My turtle was Polish. His name was Magnar Stanislaw; it said so in blue glitter on a sign over his tank. Magnar Stanislaw was a red eared turtle and on a Wednesday I left work early to get to Pet Planet before five thirty. I put the Turtle Bites canister into the eco-friendly mesh bag offered at the door, and stepped, probably very suspiciously, to the tank ornaments. I tried to look like I was not looking at tank accessories, or specifically the ceramic mermaid breasts. By facing the other way, I was staring into the face of an angry parakeet. The sign hanging below his swing said his name was Sturge. Of the decidedly aquatic themed knickknacks, the maritime selection was under stocked. I did not want to be the pet owner with a treasure chest in his turtle tank, so I picked a submarine that promised to float and sink depending on how much air was in the sub. The cashier was a high schooler, the kind that would say that animals were his friends. I walked the five blocks to my apartment with the submarine in my hand and the turtle food in my pocket. I wondered if passersby noticed the bulge.

Magnar Stanislaw paddled water when I closed the door. I took off my pants because it was hot, and walked over to Magnar Stanislaw’s tank to drop turtle food pellets in the water. I felt like saying something witty to him, like Rocky, but decided that talking to my pet turtle was too weird. Instead I pointed at him with both hands like old-timey cowboys. Magnar Stanislaw stared at me. The submarine was grey without any markings. I put it in the tank and Magnar Stanislaw pushed his neck out and tried to bite it. He kicked up the bottom of the tank scum, brushing the plastic propeller with where I imagined his nose to be. The sub bounced off the side of the tank, poking Magnar Stanislaw in the mouth. He blinked a few times and then involved his front feet in the fight against the ornament. I decided that the sub was German. I pictured the tank as the Atlantic, or the Baltic, whichever one was closer to Poland, with a fleet of subs coming to attack the country of Poland, represented by Magnar Stanislaw. I could see it perfectly; the u-boats surfacing off the coast of Magnar Stanislaw, preparing their torpedoes, the sailors running to their positions. I wondered what it would be like to man a torpedo, put it into place, alert others that it was ready to fire, receive the command, push the big red button, hear the whoosh of an object propelled through water, and the inevitable explosion that followed. Magnar Stanislaw’s red ears made me think of the ignition of the Polish fleet, the fire and smoke covering the beaches of the Baltic.

Thursday, Lane came over to watch NBC programming; I had the advantage of basic cable over her local news channels. I had found my model car paint in the shoebox at the bottom of my closet, and set them out on my desk. Lane walked into the living room holding the submarine.

“Why was this in your dish rack?” she grinned with one eyebrow raised.

“I’m going to paint it.” I gestured towards the paints.

“What are you going to paint on me?” She said in a high voice, bobbing the sub in front of her face. She taught first grade, and her energy level matched that of her students.

“It’s going to be German.”

“Ja, I am German! Vhat’s going to be painted on me?” She asked in a German accent, wiggling the sub.

“I’m going to do the Luftwaffe, because a swastika would be— bad.” I plucked the sub out of her fingers, and leaned over to kiss behind her ear.

“Do I have a captain?” Lane asked, still in accent.

“Ja, Kapitän Arnulf Schtockheimer.” I put the sub on my desk.

“Ja, dat’s goot.”

I painted the sub after she went home. Magnar Stanislaw was chewing his freeze dried shrimp and spitting them back into the water, only to chew them again. I figured that’s what cows would do, had they the opportunity to survive in water. I made a black cross with the widened ends on the grey sub, and outlined that with the white. I felt like a lonely fifteen year old– painting insignias with model paints at my desk for my turtle.

After I washed my hands, I turned on my new X box for some ‘Stripes of Glory’ WWI hand to hand combat. After dusting a few krauts, I felt a little bad for shooting at what were technically digital versions of my Great-Grandad Edsel’s countrymen. I wondered if there were any pro-German video games. Maybe in Germany, but they would possibly feel bad about promoting Nazism, so it would probably be Viking themed. It would be cool to play a Viking game, but, in my experience, games with shooting were a bit more satisfying. Lane was Swedish and English by ancestry, so only half of her would be offended if I were to play a pro-German game. I wanted to play that game, but no one had invented it yet. I decided to make it myself. I had no experience with programming, but I knew a lot of people who did. That was the advantage of working at Crunch Board Entertainment. I would ask on Monday or Tuesday how to go about making a proposal. It could be bigger than ‘Stripes of Glory’ or ‘Liberty Trenches’ or even ‘Patches of Honor: Pacific Theatre.’ I looked at the sub in the tank, gently dipping with the waves made by Magnar Stanislaw tapping the glass with his front legs, his unsteady feet shaking the water.

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Graduate Printmaking Exhibition

Mar 25
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This was published on the Pratt success blog; http://prattsuccess.blogspot.com/

Graduate Printmaking Exhibition

The Graduate printmaking exhibition highlights diverse styles, formats, and subject matter. This show displays work from various artists, and provides a wide selection of different ways in which printmaking can be utilized. Some employ text, some are minimal, others colorful, and all in varying sizes. The materials on which the prints are executed stretch from pulpy papers to heavy fabrics. One of the two striking images in the career services office when one enters is a seven foot tall black and white print depicting a death struggle between a giant squid and a whale, half a ship sinking behind them. The inky water around them punctuated with drowning sailors and whitecaps. The other is a print of the same size, white backing with a bright green cassette tape a the top with the spools of tape ribboning out in curls, playing with the depth and movement, complete with animated movement lines. Some of the other colorful prints include an industrial themed set of two depictions of chains and cogs, presented in dark tones of rusts and earthy hues. The two feature similar tinges of thickly laid ink, with darker shadows, and an almost solid, waxy surface. Another rendering of color in the show is seemingly an experiment with the color purple. By using severely different shades of purple, the image of a broken television is all the more arresting with the shot of white to depict the cracked screen. The floral wallpaper behind the television creates a pale and blue-purple backdrop for the aptly titled, “Go to the Park.”

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Riptide

Feb 03
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Mercer kept salt water in a jar next to the window over the sink. It wasn’t the same as the water she scooped it from. This was clear, with sand in the bottom and bits of seaweed or fish parts settled. Mercer liked the thick glass, with the smooth letters that spelled a cursive ‘mason.’ The jar was clear, and the water was clear, and it was wrong. Her mother Hannah kept old bits of china and sea glass. They were splayed with gray rocks that had white veins in them. They were wrong, sitting on wood instead of being polished and smoothed and worn down to bits of sand. Mercer thought of what should have been little piles of sand on her mother’s dresser.

Mercer secretly climbed a tree. She wanted to look over the pond, see where it met the ocean. Her grandmother’s house was mildew and pine. Hannah spent her summers there until an orphan burned it down along with five other houses near the beach. The fireplace was old; the rest was rebuilt while Hannah was in school. Mercer climbed down, the dry bark crackling. The beach was past the pond, but she had seen snapping turtles crawl onto the lawn. She climbed up the rock face instead of walking around the house to the lane, and closed the faulty screen door that let mosquitoes in. Lucas poked a snapping turtle with a stick on the front lawn, smiling up at the living room and reaching his foot toward the turtle’s mouth. She didn’t watch him taunt their mother.

The kitchen was connected to the living room by a slate pathway shouldered by windows. Her grandmother had jars with nothing in them. Mercer fit the jars into each other like Russian dolls. She slipped her sandals on in case her grandmother came into the kitchen. Her feet were dirty, and scratched between the light calluses.

Mercer went to the beach with Hannah, her grandparents stayed under the overhang of the clubhouse. Hannah told her about diving off the elephant with the boys, her swimsuit snapping when she hit the water, spending the entire summer with her bikinis held together with safety pins. Mercer wanted to climb the elephant. To see what the beach looked like from up there. To step around dried barnacles and touch the warm rock with her hands as she maneuvered up the tail and onto the back. To shoo the sea birds off, trying not to step in their droppings, thirty years of baked seagull scat.

* * *

She tried to swim to the elephant when she was little, with Lucas, both of them in life vests. Hers had dolphins on it. The undertow started, it was hurricane season, and the jellyfish were coming to the shoreline. The sign on the beach said that they were only allowed in the water if accompanied by at least one other person. Hannah held Mercer and Lucas by the nylon tethers on the backs of their life vests. They were floating on their stomachs, paddling, tipping right and left to crawl, necks sticking out as far as they could go to keep their chins out of the water. Lucas had a red life vest with yellow piping, she knew it was red, because Hannah’s feet got knocked by a wave, and she didn’t let go. Mercer saw Lucas’ red life vest through the sand and the seaweed. She saw Hannah’s blue swimsuit and her own white life vest with the pink and purple dolphins on it. They all looked darker under the water; the sand was between her and the sky. She saw legs and sand and sand again. When Mercer’s head came out of the water, Lucas was crying.

“Why do you want to kill me?” His cheek was already pink from where his knee hit.

“I didn’t try to kill you.” Hannah pulled her yellow hair out of her face.
“Yes you did! I saw! You went under and wouldn’t let go! I was going to die!” His other cheek was blushing, and his eyebrows arched in a ‘why?’
“If I let go, then you’d be dead. The riptide would pull you out far, far out to sea, and you’d be gone. You’d go one way and Mercer would go another way, and I’d lose you both. Would you prefer that?” Hannah turned them back to the shore.
“Yes! My head wouldn’t be underwater.”

* * *

Mercer left her sandals by the door, and closed it slowly. In the dark she almost couldn’t see where the tears were in the screen were. The dog stared at her, pacing. She hoped animals could receive telepathic messages, because she promised him a treat if he didn’t bark. Apparently he could, because he sat and tilted his smooshed face to the side to ask ‘now?’

Every pad of her toes slicked with the dew on the slate stairway. She walked in the grass until the driveway met the road, and took a right. The honeysuckle draped itself over the stonewalls like balloons filled with dough. She pulled the flowers and sucked the stamens clean, leaving empty petals. Her red brown hair was littered with leaves on the right side where it snagged twigs. She passed the sleeping beach houses with road bikes in the front yard. Mercer walked through the hurricane damage from before her grandmother was born, over the felled chimneys and sunken bathtubs. The fence on the dunes was missing a section where the pallets were stacked end to end around the clubhouse. She folded her shorts and shirt next to the lifeguard chair, the sand fine and cool, squeaking against her metatarsals. She retied her bikini with a double knot, the dark green matching the dune grass.

Mercer planted herself at the edge, the water sucking the sand from under her, leaving foot shaped pools, the pale and lacy foam ankleting. The elephant was between her and the lights from the harbor, glowing, the beached side black and wrinkled. She squatted, picking up a hollow green crab, flicking it onto the beach for the gulls. She climbed into the ocean, her arms sunk to her elbows, toes curling into the sand and shells at the shore. She gripped the bottom, the shells and old seaweed clinking against her bracelet, crawling.

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Bozeman

Dec 12
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This was published by the Pratt Success Blog, an offshoot of Pratt Career Services and Peer to Peer: http://prattsuccess.blogspot.com/


Micah Bozeman – Drawings at EastOne Gallery

Micah Bozeman Drawings
Exhibition at EastOne Gallery
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
November 10th, 2008 – December 2nd, 2008

Review by Cat Metayer

Micah Bozeman’s artwork tends to make its surroundings more rustic by association. While some of his work is ink and charcoal on paper, the majority of the exhibition employs recycled wood. Bozeman works with natural shapes and lines and using wood for a medium showcases his style.

Bozeman is a Fine Arts major with a concentration on sculpture at Pratt Institute in his junior year. For the work in this exhibition, Bozeman collected the wood from different parts of New York, most of which comes from used wooden pallets. He claims that while he strives to make organic shapes, the lumber itself influences what he draws on it. Bozeman chooses to work with instead of against the basis for his art. Some of the pieces are wood displaying art, and others are art displaying wood, in all instances both art and timber compliment one another. Bozeman’s concentration on sculpture creates a harmony between the two and three dimensional aspects of his work. Some of the wooden pieces are focused on the drawing itself, while others are focused on all facets of the wood, thus creating an entirely new breadth for his vocation.

The general reaction to the exhibit has been one of intrigue and surprise. In a severe contrast to the more colorful prior exhibits, Bozeman’s display is much more understated and minimal. Passersby have called the show’s organic shapes “lively” and “sexual.” The drawn shapes seem to be a meditation on the organic topic; with curves and upswept lines further weaving together the natural theme of the exhibit.

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Lightning Bugs

Nov 21
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When the child is filled with darkness, the lamps are too yellow, the couch is too brown, the carpet is dry and cracks under the child’s elbows. The sister of the child has her braids fraying in the middle. The knitting basket is full of sea mines, and the yellow glow of the ceiling light is puckered with the lightning bugs trapped inside for years. The turntable scratches over the warps. The piano in the corner bares its teeth, parted and widened, its feet hovering above the carpet. The layers of old wallpaper peer out where they meet the ceiling, whitecapped by putty and paint. The child’s skin is pink and raw from leaning against the carpet, and sings throbbing. The television is too loud, the colors jump at him. The child pulls himself on his elbows back towards the wall, away from the television and the piano. He inches towards the tiled bathroom, the tiles that are wet in the summer. His singing skin cooled, condensation on his hairs.

* * *

In the summer, the child’s family visits his cousins’ house, the one with the horses. The field out back is overgrown and full of horse droppings and blackberries. Paul and Dad pick blackberries and hand them to the child, and he fills his mouth and covers his face. He picks with both hands, ripe, overripe, green. Some leaves gum to his sticky fingers.

The grass is itchy against the child’s knees where his galoshes don’t meet his swim trunks. Dad tells Paul to look at something, and he holds out his hand and pops it in his mouth. Paul stares at the child as his eyes widen. Dad asks what the matter is, but Paul doesn’t open his mouth, can’t, won’t. He puffs out his cheeks and looks from the child to Dad, hoping they know what to do.

The slimy back of the frog touches the roof of his mouth, quietly waiting to be let go. The child could feel the little feet on his tongue. Dad laughs and tells Paul to spit. The little frog hops away quickly. He doesn’t stop spitting all the way home.

* * *

The child becomes used to being one of sleep’s discards. Tired of lying in bed, pretending the basement is not an ancient Native American burial ground, dug up so that the foundation could be poured. Pretending no one will grab him coming back from the bathroom to punish him for dishonoring their land. Pretending the waterfall into the window from that storm was just a freak of nature, and not a warning. The child turns a few lights on in the living room. The spiders, poisonous ones, crawl out from behind the television, and the thriller mystery novel Dad bought for plane rides has odd legs smooshed into unnatural positions on the back. The green goo from the big white spiders coats the wall and the book, like alien blood smear. The child doesn’t mind the little brown hairy ones, but the big white ones are unreasonable, always appearing in the middle of the day or the middle of the night.

At 1:30 am he has to kill two spiders. By three, there is another. The sticky trap behind the television is full of the hairy brown ones, most still twitching. He pretends that he is not living in a grave basement, and there are no angry spiders behind the television, in the laundry room, under the bookshelf, in the bathroom, under his bed with the hunter green comforter. Pretends there aren’t spider leaders planning their attack while he sleeps. Pretends the sticky pads will hold them, and that angry and deformed spiders are not coming for him. The child wonders how mad the dead Indians are compared to the sticky spiders.

* * *

Sometimes in the summer, his friend’s family visits. Dad makes a fire in the pit near the apple trees. The child and his friend light sparklers, and catch lightening bugs, and sleep in the yard. He and his friend dig for clay and make mud pots to sell, and wash their arms in the stream. They put green felt hats on and shoot twig arrows from bows made of sticks and rubber bands. They are both Robin Hood, and pick up apples under the trees, and eat them next to the stream, in the shade. They bite ants, and suck out their insides. The red ones are salty, the black ones are sweet. They spit the empty bodies back onto the ant hill, and pour baking soda and vinegar on them. It’s an experiment. When Dad goes inside, they spray WD40 on bigger ant hills, and watch them writhe before lighting the grease on fire.

The friend and the child paint the lilac trees with mud, to protect them from the sun. The trees turn white, and when it rains, only one side stays muddy. When it is time to go, they tell the parents that they are stuck together, and need medical experiments to take them apart. The friend gives back the green cape, and they separate which mud pot was made by whom. They stick together as the friend gets into the car. He gives the friend a collectable card that will be worth a lot if he keeps it in its sleeve. The car is on the road, and in the driveway the child finds the plastic eggs they caught the fireflies in that rattle like rice when he picks them up.

* * *

Just because he finds something, doesn’t make it his. Dad found the cat under his truck, the cat stayed with them for a year, and then the cat was gone. He still finds orange hairs everywhere even though they moved away. The cat had kittens once, when they thought the cat was a boy. Dad gave the kittens to a man who had a farm. Sometimes Dad hears crazy stories about the kittens, how they killed a wild hare together, or scare the horses. The cat’s probably hiding under someone else’s truck, or part of some orange owl coughings, like the ones the child had to dissect in third grade when he found a shrew skull. That wasn’t his either – it was the shrew’s, and then the owl borrowed it, and then he found it. He wanted to take it home with him, but it wasn’t his to keep, and Mrs. Greene said he had to leave it with the rest of the owl coughings on the paper towels – the brown ones that never got his hands dry – public school towels.

* * *

The child develops a coping mechanism called “the desert lizard” wherein he blends in with the environment until attacked, and leaves a piece of him behind for escape. Desert lizards are the same color as desert rocks and stay very still. They blink sometimes, but they become part of the rock. If a bird can see them, the lizard gets ready to run, but lets go of its tail if that means not being eaten. He lets go of his argument if someone gets mad, and smiles and pretends he never cared about anything. If the bird gets the tail, it leaves the lizard alone. When he gives them a concession, they leave him alone until the next time they get hungry for his surrender. They swallow his defeat like a tail, and break it down, making it part of them, adding it to all the other conceded arguments they’ve won, building themselves into a desert bird out of his lizard tails.

After a few arguments, their nose forms into a hooked beak and the feathers sprout out of their forearms. Their brow becomes a V, their mouth points downward, their bones hollow, and their toes become scaly and crooked. Soon, instead of yelling, they screech so that it can echo in canyons, off of the rocks he blends into, and up to the sun they can’t fly to. The child’s tail has no time to grow back, and they peck at his oozing stump, until they swallow him whole, his padded fingers sticking to the side of their beak. And they fly home, taking him with them to feed to their hook beaked chicks on the side of a canyon, in a nest built of the rocks he now hides under.

* * *

In the house the child used to live in, there were streams and a pond that filled itself in. He puts a plank over the stream, and calls it a bridge, and covers it with mud, so it is stronger. A piece of drift wood is his oar, and his fishing spear. He pretends there are fish in the stream, and brings home minnows he caught in the ocean, and puts them in the pond, so they can grow big. The pond will be full of fish, and he and Dad can catch them in their backyard. The minnows disappear under last years’ leaves. The child uses his driftwood to clear out the leaves, making the pond harder to see through. The minnows try to jump out of the pond, their silver sides through the murk. The fish, pushed back into the pond, stick their heads out of the brown water. He picks one up, sucking for air, and pokes its gills, covered in the mud. His dirty finger tries to squeeze some of the mud out, rinses the minnow off. He puts the minnow back into the pond, with its family; he figures swimming with their heads out of the water is a way of getting to know each other. He can hear it when their little lips smack together as they talk to each other. They turn brown as they smack their tails on the water, turning sideways, trying to unclog their gills. The child stirs the water, and they hide under the leaves, and know they are hibernating for next spring.

* * *

The child lives in a lighthouse seven miles outside the city. He reads a story about a little girl who lived in a lighthouse and wanted a garden, but it was so rocky, nothing would grow. So every spring she would buy new soil for her garden that would wash away in the winter swells. He wonders if he could plant a garden here, rocky on the cliff over the ocean. He decides to start with some window boxes.

Every night, in his lighthouse, he goes upstairs – he calls it the crow’s nest – to light the lamp. Tiny swallows live up there, but at night they sleep. The child wonders if swallows could cast bird shadows on the fall clouds outside if they woke up. He sits downstairs looking at the clouds for bird shadows. Dad goes into the city for oil for the lamp to refill the reservoir. He goes to a maritime shop, but sometimes they don’t have oil, so he has to buy it in a candle store. It doesn’t have the smoke or the smell. The child wonders how they get the oil out of the goose. He could have some geese, and squeeze the oil out of them like row from a fish, all pink and full of miniature clear globes that break under a fingernail with the tiniest pop.

* * *

The child brings food under the trees, and climbs into their branches. He pees around his fort, so the wolves will know it’s his. There are wolves in the woods, even if Dad says they’re deer, he hears them sometimes. The wolves know the fort is his, and stay in the woods, but he can hear them running on the brown pine needles and old twigs. They splash across the stream higher up. He hears them licking the water. He could catch one, and have it live with him in the fort. The wolf would be wild, but it would scare other things away from the fort.

The child wishes there was a willow tree, so he could swing from the vines, but there isn’t, so he ties ropes to the old apple trees. Sometimes he falls when the rope is wet. He puts metal bowls of fruit in the stream, and calls it a refrigerator. When it starts to rain, he pulls a tarp over a tree, and under a rock. He sits in the blue tarp, listening to the tapping. There is old glass in the leaves, and he hides it again. Sometimes he finds brown glass, but sometimes it’s green.

When he finds glass at the ocean, it’s smoother, and doesn’t have the raised letters. It’s frosty, and salty. At the ocean, he sits in warm tidal pools, and climbs the rocks, navigating the barnacles. Schools of tiny fish form a silver cloud, sprinting from his hands in odd directions until reforming their cloud. The child holds drift logs together for a raft, and paddles it out to where the cement docks end, and Dad tells him to come back.

He finds clusters of mussels and wants to take them home to cook, but can’t pry them from each other, pruning fingers tearing on the rims. Mussel shells become spades, and cups, and knives, and swords. His fingers bleed on razor clams. He banks the tidal pools with sand, the sand fleas hopping on his arms, tiny bites mixing with the itch of the salt water drying. He sits in the pools while Dad talks to the harbor master. Swimming alone is how children get pulled out to sea, where he would drift on his back farther and farther out, and sharks would teach him to breathe underwater. They would tell him to kill big fish with his teeth, and to dart quickly, and his eyes would move farther to the sides of his head, with his nose wide to smell blood in the water. That’s what happens to children at sea, and no one knows they’re children anymore.

The child sits waist deep in the pools, and sings to periwinkles until the tops of the masts are orange, and it is time to go. His hair holds the sand close to his scalp, which will stay for two weeks, sometimes three, and his pillow will smell like the ocean.

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Crow Finished

Nov 10
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I asked my mother to dream about swans, and in the morning she would tell me about how beautiful they were. I told my mother about my dreams in the morning at breakfast. The dreams would be dreams until I made them stories at the end. I made my dreams about dancing in ballrooms, but I never dreamed about ballrooms. I usually dreamed about a mummy coming out of my radiator. My mother told me that if I couldn’t sleep, I could have worry dolls under my pillow. I had four, and they lived in an earrings box. I could feel the lump under my pillow, which made me a princess. My brother had worry dolls, but they lived in his nightstand.

If I grew corn on a deserted island, I would make smoke signals, the way my mother told me, with blankets over the fire up down hold hold up down up. I would wait for responses – I would wait with my corn, holding my blankets – my red, purple and blue blankets. My mother told me that special flowers were for the blue – and collected berries were for the red and purple. She told me a story about how crow brought the fire to earth, how beautiful crow was with his colors, and how the bringing of the fire covered his colors with soot. We drew pictures of crow with his colors and covered them in black crayon, so we could scratch the wax away, showing little lines of color underneath, like crow’s feathers in the sunshine. My mother told me that crow had a beautiful singing voice, but the smoke from the fire hurt his voice, all he could say was “caw.”

I wonder if crow would come to my corn and take and eat it. I told my mother that crow brought me corn, and I ate it. But I was very small. I wonder if crow would bring me anything. My mother told me that crow was the messenger between the human beings and the sky. My mother told me about his fire, and how it scattered seeds that made the blue flowers. My mother told me that the blue flowers were from a sacrifice of a doll with two jay feathers, and after it was burned, there were blue flowers everywhere, and there wasn’t any more drought. My mother told me the drought was ended with fire, because that is the way all droughts end. I wonder if crow would see my signals I made with his fire, in the corn he gave me. Up down hold hold up down up.

In the fall, the hills were black where the blueberries caught fire. My mother told me that blueberries can’t grow unless they are burned every two or three years. But every blueberry field owner had a different year to burn. One hill didn’t grow well at all, it was burned every year. The best blueberries were on a mountain, and my father and his family would climb the mountain every year, and wouldn’t leave until they filled their buckets. My grandmother fell off the mountain with her bucket. She rolled until she got to the bottom. My father and his family ran down the mountain, and she was waiting for them. My grandmother picked up her bucket and went home to pick the leaves and twigs out of all the blueberries. I tried to see my grandmother falling down a mountain, but I’d only seen her in a pink kitchen. My grandmother was very small, and I didn’t know that it was because she was Irish. I wonder if I’d be taller than her today. She was so small, in a cornfield, she would get very lost.

I got lost in the corn, because I was very small. I practiced in real mazes, but in real mazes there are footprints. There aren’t any footprints in corn, but there are hoof prints. I think we gave the corn to deer, he didn’t take it from us. We spent the summer tilling the field, and sowing the seeds. In the morning, I got up very early, and could see deer eating the corn and peas and beans. Deer could see me, but I didn’t bother him. My mother told me deer came at night too. My father built a scarecrow out of an old pair of pants and shirts. Crow sat on it and ate peas. My father shot his gun in the air to scare deer away, but deer came back. In the fall, we found three ears of corn left, deer had eaten some, but left those for us. My mother didn’t till the field, but made a tiny garden just for me and my brother to eat from. We could play outside, and eat tiny carrots, because we didn’t give them time to grow.

Dark pink ribbon was special. My mother only had a little bit, and I tied dried grass from our old house in it. When I picked it, I was Cinderella, because I had a blue dress on. I wanted to remember our old house when we moved, and I tried to fill my suitcase with grass from the yard, but my mother told me I shouldn’t. I started filling it when my mother told me we might move. I told my mother that I wanted to move, and I started packing the yard. When we got to the new house, I could take the yard out of my tiny suitcase, and it would be the same.

It snowed a lot the first winter in the new house. I didn’t live on a mountain anymore. The snow near the ocean was fat and sticky. It snowed to my waist. My mother told me it only snows that much every five years. I knew when I was nine it would snow deep again. We walked through the apple orchard next door. The snow was in the wind, so the neighbors couldn’t see us. The trees were old, I don’t think they had apples anymore. We had our scarves wrapped around our faces, my mother, my brother and me. We just wanted to see the apple trees. We had to walk through our part of the woods, where there was less snow, and I could still see the pine needles. I wonder if we ever met our neighbors with the apple orchard. My mother told me if I was in the woods, not to let the neighbors see me.

I tried to disappear when I was in the woods. My mother told me about Geronimo, how he was a medicine man who could disappear. He would escape the cavalry by disappearing, or by bringing the dust storms around his people. I saw a picture of Geronimo, with his rifle. My mother told me he became a great warrior because soldiers came and killed the women and children in his village. He wasn’t a warrior before. My mother told me it was proven that he was magic. His people stayed away from the cavalry for longer than any one thought they could, and the cavalry thought he was magic too. My mother told me that Geronimo knew first president Roosevelt, the one with the mustache. The cavalry didn’t catch Geronimo until he was very old, and they made him live in Oklahoma. After he surrendered, his hair was short. I asked my mother why he always looked angry, and she said that it took a long time to take a picture, he had to be serious. My mother told me that Geronimo wasn’t a chief, but he still had to lead. I tried to disappear in the woods, but Geronimo disappeared in a cave.

I didn’t have a cave, but we had a bat house. It was so they wouldn’t live in our barn. My mother told me woodpecker. She told me that my father was feeding the animals when woodpecker started looking for grubs in the roof of our barn. Woodpecker couldn’t peck through tin, but he didn’t know that. My father thought that someone was shooting at him and ran out of the barn. When he saw that there was no one there, he went back in. Woodpecker tried a second time to get grubs out of our roof, and a second time, my father thought someone was shooting at him. My mother told me that my father never ran as fast in his life. When he saw that it was woodpecker, my father went inside to get his gun, but woodpecker flew to a tree, and hid in the leaves. Owl is smarter than woodpecker, but I never get to see owl. My mother didn’t have any stories about owl, because owl is so quiet, and wise that she doesn’t get into trouble like the rest of the animals. I wanted to be like owl, but I was more like woodpecker. My cousin told me that when I was very small I would breathe in the middle of words, because I would forget. Owl wouldn’t forget.

Before summer started, my mother would tell us that it was hooky day, and we would go to the secret beach, and swim in the ocean. It was so cold that our bones hurt, but we wouldn’t forget the cold. Every time we went swimming for the rest of the year, the water was warm. There were tidal pools full in the rocks that were bath water warm. We sang to the periwinkles, asking them to come out. My mother would take our dog behind the beach by the crabapple trees, so no one could see her. It was our secret beach, so our dog was allowed. The secret beach was hidden behind the harbor master’s office and a marine salvage shop. There were no other people but us. My mother braided tall grass together to make crowns for us. Me and my brother would harvest the seaweed so we could sell it. We tried eating it, but it was salty and slimy. When we waded into the water, my brother would try to catch the minnows, but they were fast. My brother and me would go home and eat sardines and pretend we caught them. They were never as good as the fish we really caught. My father knew how to clean a fish with two rocks. I saw him using a Swiss army knife when I was disappearing in the woods. My brother and me caught our fish in the morning and had them for breakfast.

I dreamed about eating fish, in the winter, when the ice wasn’t thick enough to sit on. My mother told me that my father drove his jeep across ice that wasn’t thick enough, and it cracked behind him. If he had turned the wheel, his jeep would have sunk. I dreamed about our car rolling backwards up hills, down icy mountains, and across lakes that weren’t thick enough to sit on. My mother told me in the dreams to be patient, like a little doll. But I didn’t know how to be patient in a rolling car when my car seat was unbuckled. Crow would sit on the telephone lines and yell at me as I rolled past. I always woke up right before our neighbor saved us.

I told my mother about my dreams, and she said that maybe I was afraid of moving to our new house. I told my mother I wasn’t afraid of moving, because I wanted to live near the ocean, and pick blueberries. My mother would ask me what kind of story I wanted her to tell me. My father sold windows and doors, and I would ask my mother to tell me a story about windows. My mother would tell me about windows, and I would dream about flying.

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Morton

Nov 07
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This was published through Pratt success blog, an offshoot of Pratt Career Services, http://prattsuccess.blogspot.com/

EastOne Gallery

Anthony Morton The Miss Series
Exhibition at EastOne Gallery
Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
October 13th-November 4th, 2008
http://www.artworkbyanthony.com/

Review by Cat Metayer

Anthony Morton’s paintings stand out in a beige and brown office setting; their vibrant colors and contrasts creating an appreciated focal point for an art school career workplace. Morton utilizes college, internet, and popular culture for his “Miss Series;” a collection of paintings based on pictures taken from popular networking site, myspace.com.

Morton, a sophomore at Pratt Institute, works primarily with acrylics for the series, with a combination of realism and imagination. The paintings themselves are highly stylized interpretations of the photographs, with colorful embellishments; whimsical, cartoon inspired shapes, adding a touch of fantastic to the portraits. The colors of the flourishes are reminiscent of the 80’s, a decade widely mined by the modern youth culture. The largest painting, titled “Miss Ali S.” is Morton’s first experiment with oil based paints and perhaps his most resolved.

The photographs used for his work are the images which these women chose to display themselves to the internet populace, a fact that Morton bases the series on. Attention is paid not only to the subjects, but also to their chosen attire; their designer sunglasses, necklaces, and earrings, giving the consideration to the items which these characters use to build their image.

The popular “myspace pic” the very best image, according to the subject, based on lighting, angle, and fashionable attire, is a mainstay for modern youth culture. Some say this gives the subject a feeling of power over their image in the world, while others claim that it is a deceit of the internet public. Morton’s work seems to speak to the former, further stylizing an image deemed by the subject as the best depiction of themselves.

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Sea Bugs

Oct 31
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When I was a little geuhl, my fathah’d tell me I’d be a great lobstah fishamin. We’d be in thuh Marinah’s dinah’n he’d say when I got oldah, he’d take me on his boat, thuh Marie, named aftah my muthah. N he says when I get married, I’d name my boat aftah my wife. But I nevah thought a geuhl’d evah fit a boat. My muthah fit thuh boat. She was wicked lahge.

My fathah taught me tuh fish when I was only yeigh high. Yuh don’t know jack ‘till yu’ve bin on a boat in eight fuht swells. He puht me in chahge of wipin’ thuh winduh, yuh know, so he could see. N, yuh luhn nawt tuh stand in thuh wrong place pretty fahst. When yuh on thuh boat, and he tells yuh nawt to stand theyah, yuh don’t stand theyah. N if yuh stand theyah, yuh gonna get hit. And yuh know that yuh gonna get hit, cus he told yuh nawt to stand theyah. Theyahs so many things cin go wrong on a boat. Yuh could getcha leg in thuh winch rope, yuh could fall ovah boahd, n then yuh could git thuh hypo-theh-mia, yuh could getcha fingahs stuck in thuh pot, yuh could cutcha self when yuh ment tuh cut a line. N then yuh really up shit’s creek, cus yuh in thuh middle of thuh friggin ocean, no-body cept thuh radio cin help yuh out theyah, nossah. N thuh friggin coast gahd, theyah nevah wheah yuh want em, theyah always out savin some drownin’ puppy, oah some tourist couple, thought they’d rent a boat fah a weekind, end up floatin’ next tuh sum bouy, cus they thought “auto” meant auto poilit. Yessah, thaht’s nawt what auto means, nossah.

My lobstah boat, she’s a real beaut, Muthah thought I should name heuh aftah somethin impotahnt, yuh know, like my daughtah oah somethin, but I decided to name heuh aftah my fathah’s boat, so she’s thuh Marie II, fuh my muthah. Heuh name was Marie. My daughtah’s Meagan, Muthah thought that was pretty, heuh aunt was named Meagan. My Meagan, she’s somethin special though. She’s intah raisin chickens, and we go to thuh fayahs in thuh summah, n she wins prizes fuh them. Ouah back yahd looks like a friggin zoo, we got chickens everywheah, but we gotta keep m seprit, othahwise they fight I guess. Meagan, she’s got white ones, n black ones, and she keeps m real clean, feeds m, makes shuh they got watah, n don’t fight too much. Muthah says Meagan’s gonna be a vetruhnarin.

I’m nawt too shuh bout that, cus fishin aint what it used tuh be. Nossah. Thuh prices dropped this yeeah, so lostah’s only two dollahs a pound. Eauhliah this very summah, it was seven dollahs a pound. I’m thinkin bout pullin my pots till next yeeah, maybe thuh prices’ll be bettah then. Lots of my friends already done it, pulled theyah traps, done fuh thuh wintah. Plummah’s got a wife wuhks down at thuh Mic Mac genral stoah, yuh know, next tuh thuh campground. Sometimes Muthah n me bring thuh campah down theyah durrin thuh summah. They got a great setup theyah, they got lectricty, so yuh campah gits thuh powah. Yuh cin watch jepahdy in thuh woods, it’s a great setup, yessah.

But I’m ramblin agin. Anyhow, what me n Plummah figuh, if I go out a few moah times this yeeah, I might be able tuh skip thuh rest of this yeeah, yuh know, if I git a big nuff pot. Them viromentlists say weah ovah fishin thuh lobstah n thuh shrimp, so theyah tryin tuh git thuh govemint tuh step in n tell us howtah do ouah jobs. Does that sound fayah tuh you? Nossah, that’s whut I says. In my fathah’s day, nobody gave im that kind uh shit, he says so himself. Thuh problem is that thuh price fuh thuh gas is so friggin high that it costs moah to just go out, thin it does tuh sell thuh friggin things. Yuh gotta figuh in thuh gas foah thuh boat, powrin thuh winches, cus yuh can’t do that buy hand no moah, thuh bait, yuh have to buy frum thuh fishstick compnies, n then thuh retuhn trip back tuh habah, which is a summbitch, cus thuh lobstahs weigh a ton, if yuh got a good catch, n that means moah gas. So if it costs me a few hundred dollahs, and I git lessn that foah my catch, that don’t make no sense. Nossah.

But Plummah, he’s my deckhand, even though he’s oldah thin duht, he says hi’ll help me out. His fathah was a lobstahmin too, so he’s gabbin up thuh old timahs, findin out wheah thuh best places ah to drop ouah pots. Them old timahs, they know a thingah two, yuh know them old guys that looks like theyah a hundrid, but theyah sixty. Anyways so we says to m, we says, “Ifn yuh feel like makin a few dollahs, we could use suhm new spots to drop ouah pots.” N thuh old timahs, theyah just lienin up tuh tell us theyah most precious secret fishin spots. N Plummah, he’s got a cassette playah, just recohdin everythin them old timah’s is sayin. N me, I’m just sittin pretty, talkin tuh a few uf m.

Reminds me uf when my fathah used tuh talk with thuh old timahs when he was bout my age, n I couldn’t a bin moah thun nine, bout yeigh high, sittin theyah, listnin t’evrythin, N theyahd have a coupla beeahs, speshly f theyahd be stayin in that week-end. Now, thuh old timahs is askin me, “You John Milek’s boy? I knew yuh when yuhwer only bout yeigh high. How ah yuh doin these days? Yuh know, I usedtuh know youah muthah, God blessah. N Youah fathah, he used to fish with some of thuh boys n me. I heuhd yoowas lookin fra new fishin ground. I got just thuh spot.”

What none of thuh old timahs new was thet they all had thuh same secret fishin spot. So me n Plummah, we figahs that’s thuh ticket, so we git thuh pots ready, n pack up all ouah geah, n git the bait. Muthah hates it when I go out, thuh bait stinks up thuh garage, n that’s next tuh thuh house, so she’s nevah too happy bout that. But so me n Plummah, we gotta git thuh boat all checked out n so fohth, cus ouah inspecshon stickah got woahn out. So we drive down tah Bangoah, that’s Bangoah, nawt Bangah. N it’s a friggin pain in my ass tuh get thuh boat all thuh way down theyah, but Plummah’s got some buddies who wasn’t doin nawthin, n they helped git thuh Marie II onto heuh trailah.

So Plummah, he don’t talk too much, we’s sittin in my truck, n we figah, it’s nawt too fah’ve a drive, maybe we stop at thuh Wendy’s on thuh way back. So we get theyah, thuh boat just baily passes inspecshon, just baily. But it does, n we head back tuh Lincolnville. But we’s really lucky, yessah, if we hadn’t gone out tuh Bangoah, we woulda died, shuh’s I’m standin heah now. Yessah. One uh them freak stohms come outa thuh noath, came down, hit thuh hahbah pretty damn hahd, n my boat, she don’t do too well in nasty stohms like that. She’s one a them secondhand jobs. But it’s faily bad on thuh roads too, so weah swehvin, n we got thuh boat on thuh trailah, n that’s nawt doin so well, n we figah, if we stop at thuh dinah ovah theyah, we get a nice suppah, n ride thuh stohm out that way. Well, Plummah, he thinks it’s a good plan, so we stop. I tell yah, we had a great spread theyah. But so we get back tuh thuh hahbah, n it’s wicked bad. So instead, we put thuh boat in Plummah’s yahd, cus his wife’s nawt comin back foh a few days, n we go have a beeah with some a them old timahs.

That next day, we git up wicked eauhly, n we git all ouah shit togethah, n head outa thuh hahbah. Thuh day aftah a stohm, that’s a good day tuh fish. So Plummah’s makin shoah we headin twahds that secret fishin ground that them old timah’s told us bout. So we get theayah, n I shit you nawt, theyah was lobstahs friggin everywheyah. So we drop ouah pots theyah, n sit back n wait fah them. So we decided tuh have a couple a beeahs, n we git tuh gabbin n whatnawt. N so we figah, if we come back tommorrah, theyah’d be moahn a scrid a lobstahs, maybe we’d git a ton. So we head back tuh hahbah, n wouldn’t yuh know it, I stand in thuh wrong spot, n wouldn’t yuh know it, I fall ovahboahd. So there I is, bobbin in thuh watah, n Plummah, he don’t know how tuh tuhn thuh boat around. So he keeps tryin to tuhn thuh boat round, so he can get me outa the watah, but he’s gettin fathah n fathah out, n I’m nawt goin nowheah. N I’m thinkin, maybe this is impotahnt, since this was thuh thing my fathah told me nawt tuh do, I did it, n now I’m right wheah he said I’d be. So I says tuh myself, I says “Cahl, yuh knew yuh wasn’t sposed tuh be theyah, n now look wheah yuh ah.” So Plummah finally gits thuh boat goin in thuh right di-recshon, n he pulls me outa the watah just as fast as he could. So I’m back in thuh boat, n I figah, I’m a real lobstahmin now.

When I told my fathah bout it, he says tuh me, “Yuh’ah real lobstahmin now.” N I says to him “That’s what I thought.” N he says, “ Yuh stayed out theyah long nuff tuh show yuh ahnt afraid of low prices, oah a little cold watah.” N thuh old timahs said that was true, so I buhleived m, yessah.

My fathah always stahted out most of ‘is stories bout when he was bout yeigh high, he’d always staht it out with “When I was a little geuhl…” n his fathah’d staht his stories out thuh same way “When I was a little geuhl…” n I stahted my stories like that with Meagan, n heuh eyes’d git wicked wide, n she’d ask me at thuh end’f thuh story “where you really a little geuhl?” n I’d haveta say no deah, I wasn’t a little geuhl. But heuh grandfathah’d nevah say he wasn’t a little geuhl when he was young, bout yeigh high.

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