It
was sunrise and the sound of Anna opening and slamming shut the cupboards awoke
me from a dream… That is, the erased chalkboard memory of a dream leaving a
residue of a feeling… a sense of loss… the image of my daughter… to Anna
nudging me, “Wake up sir, your table’s ready.”
She
had already started the burners by the time I joined her, “Say, I found powdered
eggs, real butter in the fridge, some homemade bread, and cans of corned beef hash
here! You hungry for some scrambled powdered eggs and hash?”
Anna
burned the bread on the burners into something that resembled toast, fried the and
powdered eggs in butter.
Anna
watched me looking at the plate without yet taking a bite. She said, “I saw a
tiger that had been in a cage for some time. When the cage was opened the tiger
hung back as though he didn’t trust the illusion of freedom. Eat dammit. It’s
real.”
Years
of being alone with one night stands as though I had been in solitary
confinement had been relieved… the chains dropped and the cage opened. This
girl took an interest in me and that too was a simple comfort I hadn’t had or
hadn’t noticed before.
“Maybe the tiger doesn’t know where it wants
to go.” I knew where I wanted to go. I was jealous of Ryan, my friend, … I felt
the urge to rip his throat out… she was mine, dammit! The tiger’s figuring out
what he wants to eat first. Hunger won the debate and I gobbled up my plate
without talking much beyond a grunt of pleasure. Yes, powdered eggs. But they
might as well have been gourmet that morning.
I
waited for something from the radio and sat in the cabin until noon when she
asked, “Can we take the skiff ashore for a hike?”
“It
isn’t easy to get out of here,” not wanting to leave the radio, I handed her
the binoculars. “Look for yourself.”
“There’s
a trail … ain’t so bad in the middle… a creek bed.” Anna eyes locked onto the
binoculars checking out the coastline and talking to herself, “You’re right.
Terrain’s pretty rough alright,” She handed the binoculars back, “I’ve been
here before. Too difficult for day trippers… most won’t come around these parts
of the island. Especially from up there.”
I
looked up at where she was talking about. It was a warm day… now that the sun
shone down from over the cliffs it was downright hot on the water. I didn’t
want to leave the boat but thought I’d humor her by agreeing, “Sure, there’s
somewhat of a beach anyway. Go ahead. You can take a cold dip… but you’re on
yer own.”
By
the time I finished saying that, out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash
of flesh swoop out over the skiff on the transom. She treaded water, shouting, “Let’s
go, pussy!”
I
couldn’t let her get by with that kind of challenge so I stripped down to
jockey shorts, braced myself and dove. The shock of cold water on bare flesh stunned…
numbed… before stimulating me to action. It was more to do my best to get my
ass out of the icy embrace of the waters than to catch up with her.
We
hiked barefoot and near naked… I mean, Anna hiked and I followed. Not only did
she lead but she waited for me and held out a hand on the rough parts of the
climb. I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I said that I wasn’t delighted to
have Anna in wet skivvies and topless climbing ahead of me. That was when I
noticed the tell-tale bruising under her right buttock covered by the transparency
of wet cotton briefs. She was a lean and lithe cheetah, though, and physically prepared
for any challenge the trail might offer. I hadn’t been working out, or running
as much as I once did regular. Chain smoking a couple years had me coughing and
out of breath just from the swim. We managed to get to the top and hike through
the brush to the point between the two fingered harbor where we had a view of
the boat below and the coast of Santa Barbara beyond the Channel. Anna sat,
feet dangling over the edge of the precipice, and I approached her perch with
caution fighting off an onslaught of vertigo. Ego and my training wouldn’t
allow me to succumb to any such fear. Especially since Anna didn’t seem to have
had it. I sat to her, catching my breath, I felt better nearer to the ground
than standing.
Her
eyes were half open when she began to speak, “You’ve been sitting in a cab too
long, Crash. Catch your breath and let yourself breathe naturally. Let it
happen, Relax your shoulders. Breathe from your belly… just breathe. And crack
a smile, asshole.”
I
felt almost guilty interrupting, “Are you teaching me how to meditate?”
She
grinned, “No, I don’t know shit about that. Not much more than you do. Maybe a
bit from yoga. That’s all.”
At
first I thought I was humoring her. She closed her eyes and I tried to see
behind them… wondering what she was thinking. She might have been looking for something
behind that beautiful mystery of her face. It was the best I could do… let her
teach me something if it made her feel better.
I
distant image came to me as my mind became fixed on hers. They call it a mind
meld in akido, “You know; I did meditate. Towards the end in Nam. We went to these
people. It must have been part of my job.”
“We?”
Anna’s
simple question opened a door that had been shut… sealed as though something
dangerous was behind it. I remembered being there with a woman… I had no idea
who she was or what she meant to me. I hadn’t one thought of her since… “Yes, I
remember now. This man… this monk. He called it a Buddhist Church… not a temple
or something. A bunch of monks trying to make peace, you see… with all sides.
Charlie and the rest of us. I went there to… what… to deprogram a high valued deserter.
He sought refuge, I think.”
“And
there was a woman?”
“Yes,
a woman. A beautiful woman,” I said, remembering an image… nothing more. The
monks in robes… her face… that monk’s voice… hers too, and she looked something
like Anna. “No more please.”
She
answered… “Reminds me of a Japanese haiku:
Yu-gasūmi
Omoeba
hedatsu
Mukashi
Kana
----
Kitō
The
mists of evening
When
I think of them, far off
Are
days of long ago”
After
a long silence she said, “It’s you. It’s me, David. I’m as lost as you are and searching
for it too.”
The
wind was fierce over the slopes of the island and cold on my bare back at times
… no trees to break it. I felt its chill against my bare back too… but a warmth
arose from my belly… I listened to the mews of gulls but kept an eye out on the
channel. Anna, sitting beside me, was a presence… a powerful presence of peace…
peace that had evaded me for so many years. We sat together for almost an hour.
Pelicans flew past us at eye level in formation.
She
opened her eyes, catching me staring at her.
“Are
you looking for her now, David?” her voice was as though she was from an
altered state… a deeper hypnotic and somewhat comforting one. I almost fell in
with her but recoiled. She was giving me a disturbing feeling that arose from
my gut. I hate it when people try to guru me. I felt the urge to confess… to
tell somebody. I didn’t know what I had to confess. I thought I was just
thinking and wasn’t aware that I started to ramble aloud, “I left something in
Saigon… I can’t remember… that last day. It was wiped clean. I remember a woman’s
plea and running with a child in my arms. It left me then and this thing in me
became numb.”
She
droned, “What left you Crash? What was the woman to you?”
I
wasn’t following her mesmerizing tone, I cried, “Left me? No, left it. I don’t
know and it’s not knowing that bugs the shit out of me.”
“You
do know, Mr. Craszhinski. It’s in there somewhere.” She came out of the trance
state. Her voice was almost normal again. “It’s not so bad, Crash… not knowing,
that is.” It felt better… talking with another human being about the emptiness.
“I haven’t known my parents… my people since... I have memories… vague… they
fade with time. I know foster homes and… I hate to think about it now.”
“I
hardly knew mine either… except when I was a kid. Dad gave me a boat.”
“My shrink hints that’s all she does… one of
the reasons…” her voice drifted with the winds. “Crash, you know I’m trying to
quit, don’t you… you know, heroin.”
“Fuck
yes… I saw… It pisses me off too. Muscle pops on the side of your butt.”
As
much as I had been living the low-life and taking every drug I could, my
imagination had always held the image of a jaundiced junkie nodded out in some
shooting gallery with tracks up and down every available vein. But, other than
that bruise on her butt, Anna was vibrant and healthy to look at. Her body
perfect and her mind clear. Young, you can get by with it for a while when
you’re young.
“I’m
trying Crash… been trying since…”
“You
were dope-sick, not sea-sick, last night? You fixed.”
My
heart felt like lead was poured into it. I wanted badly to let it out… to cry….
to curse… I swallowed… gulped it down. Sitting there on the precipice I understood…
it was a flash. Looking down at the Sherlock bobbing gently at anchor from the
edge of the cliff we sat on, I thought of Earhart taking his dive off the
bridge. It was his last chance to get back to his warrior soul… and Anna… she
had been committing the same suicide I had been and we were in the same boat in
more ways than one.
She
didn’t answer my question but continued as if to harass me, “I watched you
become a drunk. Driving a cab at night when I met you… hiding from it.”
“I
know. I know…” I wondered how she got so abstract wise. Our daily reality
shocks normal people with so-called, normal lives and they think we suffer our
symptoms… treat them with chemicals that don’t fucking work. We know the proper
medication on the street if that’s the only aim. It’s not their fault. They
just don’t get it.
“Do
you believe in Karma, Crash?”
“Now,
don’t go hippy on me, Anna.”
“No
one can be expected to understand, David Crazhinski. You still have it there in
you.”
I
loved her clarity. I’d been thinking the same all this time. Where did she get
that? A young junkie teaching a weary old drunk.
She
must have read my thoughts when she said, “I’ve been trying like you. I love
you, David Craszhinski.”
I
know shrinks call it transference, “No… no please, Anna. I can’t… I don’t know
why for sure but…”
“Maybe
not that way then,” she elbowed me… jabbed so hard it almost bruised, “but
maybe the way two people surviving a sinking ship care for each other, okay?”
She
was making me nervous and I hoped to make her nervous too. I threw in some
sarcasm to ease the tension, “Until the water and food starts to run out and
one of us has to eat the other.”
She
jumped up on her feet, pivoting on one foot perilously near the edge of a hundreds-foot
fall as if trying to catch a pelican soaring close by, she yawked, “Fa-a-a-awk
it!”
She
came back to me, lifting me with force dangerously cantilevered only by my
weight, gripping my hands, and arching her back over the rim of a hundred-foot
drop as though trying to pull me over the edge with her. Like the child she
still was she demanded, “Let’s fly like pelicans…”
She
let go of me so that I had to step back and catch my balance. Scared shitless, I
thought for sure she would be sailing over the edge but raised her arms like a
crazy Isadora Duncan she pivoted, pirouetting, on one foot. I checked my feet where
I stood and fought vertigo to look at her. She fearlessly squealed bird noises
to an approaching pelican formation, “See, you stopped me from the brink… we
balance each other… Screech, scawtch, skree… C’mon, Crazhinski!”
“Fuck girl, don’t scare me like that!” then it
felt silly. I looked around to see if anyone was watching this display of
idiocy.
She
came back to embrace me full body. Our nakedness melding. She smiled and,
between breaths, she panted, “See, we were getting too heavy. We need to let
out some tension.”
Tension?
Unrelenting winds like what was blowing up there was a force of nature I couldn’t
fight and an unknown foe on the sea evoked tension enough for me. There were no
trees anywhere but the ones hiding in the ravines. No seed but thistle and
scrub thorny barberry had time to plant itself there and she had been close to
being blown away too.
More
tension was jetting across the Channel at eighty-knots in our direction. It was
close enough for me to see its wake with the naked eye. It would have been a
good thing to have the binoculars from this vantage but I knew the chances were
a thousand to one it against it being anyone else’s boat other than Doc’s. That
was okay with me because in times like these I needed the string pulled tight
as an e-string on a Stradivarius.
Anna’s
heard it too. I felt a little better once I saw it turned towards Prisoner’s
Harbor. We watched the channel. Her voice broke through the wind, “Might be
nothing. Let’s go back. There’s another way to let off tension. The wind cleared
my mind.”
The
girl was coming on to me again but the taboo had been becoming clearer and it stuck,
so, to redirect the innuendo, I joked, “Did you say, the wind killed a mime?”
She
gave me an elfish grin that was so cute I wanted to kiss her before she gut-laughed,
“Ha! Yeh, let’s go.”
“Right,
let’s go.” The image of the Cigarette boat with Yuri and an AK displaced any
other erotic notion I might have enjoyed. I wanted to fly down to the Sherlock
and hear whatever chatter came out of the scanner.
The
climb down was easier except for a few of the more daunting drops and, as soon
as we got back to the beach, Anna challenged, “Let’s race to the boat. Loser
cooks!”
She
was in the water before I could answer. I ran across the beach behind her and
dove in. I’m a fairly good swimmer but was humiliated. Not only that I couldn’t
catch her but she put another length on her lead before we got to the boat.
Knowing
she kicked my ass, I whined a weak protest, “Foul! You had a head start!” We
hung on to the diver’s ladder over the stern. I admired how proficient she
seemed to be at anything she put her mind to. I have to be honest about it too.
I wanted to touch her… hold her… but something held me back.
“It
doesn’t make you a loser, Crash. You just lost this one.”
We
boarded the ladder into boat in time for a call from Ryan. “Home Base Dang,
Home Base Dang calling Sherlock… Sherlock… San Pedro. Ralph’s San Pedro… Dream’s
at Prisoners Harbor… Santa Cruz.” He emphasized the misdirection, “San Pedro…
repeat, no potato and Ralph’s.”
“Way…
Way… Way… Roger that.”
“What’s
that, baby talk… way-way dang-dang way-way?”
“We
use our old handles. He was Dang… i.e., Da Nang, and mine was Way as in Hue…
simple but good enough an identity shield.”
Ryan, love that old fox in times
like these… confuse anyone listening. He emphasized San Pedro several times.
They wouldn’t figure out who or what or whether Ralph’s a bar, a landmark, or a
friend’s place. It’s a place alright, five hundred miles north. Point San Pedro
is at the entrance to San Rafael estuary. We’d used the name Ralph before, while
talking about San Quinton, the City, the Bay from Rio Vista all the way south
to Coyote Creek. My father ended up in San Quinton before he died and Ryan knew
about it.
Weighing anchor, we got underway as dusk settled a little early because
of a fog bank coming in. It was dark enough to hardly make out the coast line. No
sooner than after we passed the pinnacles at the entrance of the harbor nearing
the Arch Rock, I heard what I figured was the same Go-Fast that patrolled the
harbor. It was loud off the Starboard side coming our way. They make ‘em that
way. Like a Harley… no one would buy ‘em if they were quieter.
I cut the power behind the Rock. Our radar got a blip off Doc’s boat
because his had a radar mast. I knew he would have seen us had he been paying
attention. It was a slim chance Mizz Sherlock hadn’t been noticed on their
screen before we could duck into the radar shadow of the Arch Rock.
We had to use stealth in lieu of speed. I could hear its engine’s roar
coming closer but could see nothing from where we idled behind the rock. With
my Browning I wouldn’t have a shot until they came within sight of our hiding
place and I could be sure that, whoever they were they would be armed better
than us. Counter Intelligence in Nam Browning automatics were standard issue and
I was good over fifty yards with one but not good enough to go against an AK or
whatever they had.
I listened to the scanner in the cabin for radio chatter among the gossip
of lobster and urchin boats until I heard, “Shoreline… Shoreline to Dream Boat
Shoreline to Dream Boat… Lady’s Harbor... Not there, you lazy worthless. Try
Potato Harbor. Copy Dream Boat.”
“Dream Boat to Shoreline… Copy.”
Lazy… I counted on Doc being lazy. He didn’t have the thoroughness to
check out where we were helpless. I was happy that Potato Harbor was far enough
away to give me a lead out of range off their radar if I powered along the
coast. Potato Harbor’s at the other end of the island. I skirted so close to
the shore that I nearly grounded her on the shoals at West Point. Heading
further out through the straights between Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz into the
open seas was my best bet. I was hoping they would assume I’d hug the coast and
try to catch me on the east end of the island. Failing that they would go south
towards San Pedro.
Once out past East Point of Santa Rosa I was on the open seas where, if I
was going to die, I’d rather die there than anywhere else on the whole planet
Earth. After all, I had a sturdy boat and a mate as wild as any seas. I thanked
Ryan in my heart for putting the helm of such a fine craft in my hands… not to
mention the package.
We
would be sitting ducks against Doc if he was paying attention or didn’t buy
into Ryan’s crafty obfuscation.
The scanner confirmed we were being monitored
as it squawked with the hint of a Slavic accent, “Shoreline… Shoreline to Dream
Boat… Sherlock, San Pedro. Copy.”
“Shoreline….
Hmmm. Sounds like Yuri’s call… He’s still ashore or calling from another boat,”
I said after we were well beyond the straits into the blue waters.
“C’mon…”
Anna didn’t seem to care about my concerns and insisted, “I see, nothin’ to
worry about. I’m still fuckin’ hungry. Time for brunch. Plenty here for you to
cook. Your turn, you know. Ryan stocked us up pretty good.”
She
was right, we were likely okay for the moment. I feigned a complaint, “I was
going to cook…”
