Oct 22 24
We see the jack-o’-lantern first. A little orange dot floating in a field of gray — maybe 100 yards off in the early, marine dusk. After cutting the engine we tilt it out of the water and lock it, gliding quietly toward the red-yellow dot. From out of the puddle in the bilge we grab the large oar and stand up; nearly every time we do this (which is often) we think of Charon the ferryman who transports dead souls across the river Styx. Sometimes the thought makes us smile; sometimes it gives a shiver. Today we shiver, not due to anything morbid but because the air is cold and the wood of the oar is soaked through.
It’d be difficult to be more excited about arriving at the little wetland house on stilts. The one ahead with the pot belly stove, in front of which our clothes have been drying all day. Warm socks. Warm jumper. The last half of a pumpkin pie.
With a pleasant, dense thud, the boat knocks against the piling. We maneuver through the stilts and tie to the large brass cleat. There is a ladder which we climb which leads to a hatch in the floor. Inside: a twin bed, a small table and chair (which have been painted seemingly thousands of times), a cooler, the small black pot belly stove and cabinet — above which is pinned a very creased photo of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. There are a few more things not worth mentioning.
We quickly change out of our clothes, replacing them with the ones on the drying line. We cut a slice of the pie from under a blue handkerchief, and place it on a similar blue napkin and walk outside. We sit on the solitary chair on the narrow deck and make a tacit apology to the flickering jack-o’-lantern for eating its friends. The only sound besides our thoughts are the sounds of the boat knocking below and an occasional far off bell clanging somewhere in the darkening mist.
It’d be difficult to be more excited about arriving at the little wetland house on stilts. The one ahead with the pot belly stove, in front of which our clothes have been drying all day. Warm socks. Warm jumper. The last half of a pumpkin pie.
With a pleasant, dense thud, the boat knocks against the piling. We maneuver through the stilts and tie to the large brass cleat. There is a ladder which we climb which leads to a hatch in the floor. Inside: a twin bed, a small table and chair (which have been painted seemingly thousands of times), a cooler, the small black pot belly stove and cabinet — above which is pinned a very creased photo of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte. There are a few more things not worth mentioning.
We quickly change out of our clothes, replacing them with the ones on the drying line. We cut a slice of the pie from under a blue handkerchief, and place it on a similar blue napkin and walk outside. We sit on the solitary chair on the narrow deck and make a tacit apology to the flickering jack-o’-lantern for eating its friends. The only sound besides our thoughts are the sounds of the boat knocking below and an occasional far off bell clanging somewhere in the darkening mist.