small brush shouldn't fuck with big timber

Death's Door, the view from the Spanish announcers table: free-ballin & sea monsters

Wednesday, May 25

free-ballin & sea monsters



The captain of the tiny fishing boat was Charlie, this old swabby whose been plying the gulf coast for nigh on to forty-five years and who used to be a first mate on an ocean barge. He actually made the boat ride very cool due to the fact that he knew every fuckin inch of the coast and talked his ass off. From the porch of the condo we stayed in, we could see way out in the distance oil tankers parked waiting their turn to come into port and unload. And he told us that they park about twenty miles from shore and every blue moon he’ll take his tiny fishing boat and ride out for a look see. So I found Charlie very cool in a ole scoundrel kind of way.

He took us out into the gulf and showed us some of the sights on the tiny islands that dotted the coastline. Then he decided he wanted to show us a spot where he used to take his kids swimming. We get to this spot and he throws out the anchor and everybody bails out of the boat for a swim. The water in this area was just deep enough to ground the boat and the farther you walked out the deeper it got. I’m sitting in the boat with Charlie watching everybody frolic in the gulf water’s when folks started giving me grief about getting wet. So I unshucked my clothes and hopped in.

Now I’m gonna be truthful as a muthafucker when I say that Greg Beck is not a man of nature. I like my concrete and friendly city trees and shit like that, so hopping out of a boat into the gulf was a big step for me even though I’m still freaking out cause I can’t swim. I float like a fuckin buoy and shit and couldn’t help envisioning fears of me stepping into deep water and floating away never to be seen again.

Anyway, everybody’s playing in the water and picking up shells and shit like that. And I’m walking around starting to dig it all when I step on this large object and freak out again. Everybody told me to calm down cause it was probably just a shell in the sand. So I calm down and start walking again and I felt my toes brush up against this object in the sand again. Hmmm, it must be another shell, I think I’ll pick it up and look at it.

I bend over and pick up the shell and pull it out of the water and when I bring it up to eye level for a closer look-see I start screaming like a slapped bitch cause suddenly my innocent shell starts sprouting all kinds of arms and fingers and shit. Why I gotta pick up the fuckin shell with shit still living in it? Dammit, I bounced in clubs for years and been in thousands of fights and ain’t too many things on two feet I’ll back away from, but seeing a seashell start waving at me just fucked me up.

After flinging the wavy muthafucker I clamed down again and headed out to deeper water where everybody else was. I walked out till the water was over my waist and I felt my ballsac floating. I stood there looking out at the gulf and all my friends for a few minutes thinking that even with not knowing what was crawling toward me under the water this was all actually very cool.

"and the monkey flipped the switch"

4 Comments:

Blogger Nightmare said...

Welcome back big man! I see you caught crabs on your trip, Bummer. But they do make a cream for those little bastards. But those seem to be bigger then the ones I had, you might need the industrial strength NIX.

7:17 AM  
Blogger Satyavati devi dasi said...

Welcome back! All I can say is that I wish you'd have come to Wilmington when I was still there. I'd give money to see the look on your face when instead of a lil hermit crab, you found yourself with a 16" baby shark. I missed you!

9:40 AM  
Blogger Ole Blue The Heretic said...

Those unaccustomed to being in the ocean get freaked by it, I grew up on boats and the gulf so I am pretty cool with all of it.

Whe I was in the indian ocean swimming we had to be very careful of what we stepped on because some things over there can kill you.

11:39 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just don't call me to scrape the barnacles off your ass. I am happy you didnt get mistaken for a walrus and eaten by a shark, glad you made it home safely!!

4:43 PM  

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