A MATTER OF COURTESY

(From Magic Harbor by Don Berry)

 

 

 

 

Beethoven once said that the secret of all music was in the combination of what was expected and what was unexpected. That is a fair definition of the pains and pleasures of the water life.

Water rats live with almost equal parts of perfect disorder and perfect order. Disorder, in one sense, is the nature of our lives. We can neither predict nor control the wind and the water; sometimes we can scarcely deal with them at all.

But on the water there is a kind of etiquette that is perfectly ordered. And because many of us are somewhat shy, it is conforting to know exactly what is expected of you in a given situation; to know what is a perfectly acceptable action.

One of the points of this etiquette is the procedure by which you board another vessel. It is very simple. First you hail the vessel, by name. Secondly, you receive an acknowledgment that the skipper is aware of your presence. Thirdly, you request permission to board. Fourthly, permission is granted or denied by the skipper.

Some of us do this rather formally (I am one), and some less formally. In most cases, however, the words "Come aboard" are necessary.

I've heard this formal etiquette compared with the simple courtesy of knocking on someone's door before entering a house. But it is more than that. From belowdecks in most boats, it is often difficult to see anyone approaching, and the unexpected ap pearance of someone on your decks is not welcome. Also, the integrity of a vessel, and the authority of her skipper, is absolute in a way that far exceeds anything on land. A skipper, regardless of how run-down, decrepit, or disreputable the vessel may be, fulfills a function more like a god of a minor planet than a mere homeowner.

So minor points of etiquette are taken seriously, and to board a vessel without the skipper's express permission is not merely an act of discourtesy, but one of aggression.

And that's what caused the trouble two Tuesdays ago.

Tuesday night is currently poker night aboard OBLIO, the massive, hand-built scow schooner built by Dale Cangiamila over the past two years. In Eagle Harbor there are presently only two vessels I consider adequate to the water rat's weekly poker game , OBLIO and the 100' beam trawler GRATITUDE.

When you go belowdecks on either vessel, you immediately los e the time and space of the twentieth century. You could be in any ocean, any time in the last four hundred years. The light is the golden, soft glow of kerosene lamps, casting deep shadow s along the hull planking and heavy timber frames that support it. On GRATITUDE massive bolt heads stud the hull; OBLIO is hand spiked.

(I am not certain why we call our lamps "kerosene" lamps. Tradition, perhaps. In actuality, everyone in Eagle Harbor burns paint thinner, because it is half the price.)

Last year the poker game was aboard GRATITUDE, but Harvey re-anchored well out in the mouth of the harbor and on stormy winter nights it is far too difficult to row a dinghy against the cold wind and rain. Thus the change to OBLIO.

It was not a simple transition, and required a certain ingenuity, a certain political sophistication. Dale Cangiamila does not operate in the money economy, and even for a water rat game of penny ante poker, some money is necessary. Still, it was cl ear to me that if the poker game were to continue, OBLIO had to be seduced or acquired in some fashion.

I decided that the best course was to stake Dale to the game. Peter Fromm of UWILA agreed, and offered to split the investment, five bucks apiece. We figured that, barring some absolute disaster, some unforseen displeasure of Lady Luck, ten bucks ou ght to stake a water rat to a whole winter of good poker.

We formed the FROMM-BERRY FUND FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF PROGRESSIVE ANARCHISM, I made up a certificate on my computer, and we awarded Dale our first annual grant of $10.

Worked like a charm.

So the games started up again, the miraculous combination of pretty good poker playing and boat-rocking hilarity. (That is a bit of a literary scam; both OBLIO and GRATITUDE are far too heavy to rock, even when the players are falling down on the cab in sole from laughter.)

Two Tuesdays ago we'd been playing for an hour or so, missing a couple of regulars. There was only Peter, Dale and myself. We'd been joking about the invasion of the seagulls, as there seemed to be a lot of scrabbling on the deck from time to time.

OBLIO is so massive it is difficult to hear through the four inch thick deck. (Even when Julia screams, which she does with great power from time to time, you cannot hear it abovedecks on OBLIO.) Voices from the outside are very muted.

There was a light thump on the starboard, where the little sloop MARNIE is rafted to the scow. Dale recently sold MARNIE to a merchant seaman named Ray, and it has remained rafted to OBLIO while Ray works on it and waits to pass his seaman's union dr ug test to get another ship out.

I heard some voices very faintly, a conversational tone, and thought "Good, a couple more players." But there was no hailing call.

Suddenly, to our immense astonishment, Dale was standing at the foot of the poker table with his gigantic .44 Magnum revolver drawn and aimed at the hatch just above our heads. The .44 lives in a holster hanging from a central post next to the galley area and the poker table, and it was drawn and aimed before we even realized Dale was moving away from the table.

Dale's .44 Ruger is a huge weapon. It usually looks to be about the size of a large dog's leg, and in this moment it looked about the size of a large cow's leg.

It is a very uncomfortable situation to be in a small cabin with a man with a drawn weapon four inches from your face. Peter and I, seated side by side on the starboard berth, tried to disappear entirely. We each froze immobile, waiting, trying not to breathe too loudly.

There was an exchange that I do not remember well, if indeed it registered at all. I was not interested in the details, but I urgently wanted to see that weapon back in its holster and intended not to twitch an eyelash until it was.

Of course the invader was eventually identified as Ray, non-hailing, bringing a shipmate home with him to play poker. The gun was put away, and the game continued.

At that point I blew my stack. It takes a great deal to make me angry, but I was furious with Dale. I began to curse his paranoia, and his manners, and his sense of the appropriate response, and the hazard he thoughtlessly put us in. I remember usi ng the word "bullshit" more often than I usually do, and could find no answer to anything Dale said except "bullshit", long and loudly repeated.

Dale was as astonished by my reaction as I had been by his, and naturally he had right back at me. We share the same respect for the details of boarding etiquette, and he couldn't believe I disapproved of his reaction.

All this, of course, was much to the confusion of the poor, stranger sailor Ray had brought to play, who had no idea in the world what was going on.

Anyway, after a while we cooled down from shouting at each other, and proceeded with the poker game. It was the first moment of tension any of us could remember in a poker game in the several years the water rats have played together regularly.

Peter felt the same way I did, but he was much calmer and less vituperative about it. Later in the week he and I decided it would make a point if we both brought weapons to the next game, just to needle Dale. Independently we concluded that it was f unnier in the thinking than it would be in the doing, so we didn't do it.

The end of the story came at last Tuesday's game. When I approached OBLIO in my dinghy, I could see Peter's little Peapod dinghy already made off to the starboard rail of the sloop. Nobody was aboard the sloop, as Ray had passed the drug test and ca ught a vessel for Southeast Asia.

When I was still 20 yards away from OBLIO the heavy deck hatch rumbled back and Dale's grizzly bearded face under his black cap appeared.

"Welcome!" he called, "Welcome aboard!" He spread his arms in an expansive gesture of welcoming and hospitality. "Come aboard, mate, come aboard!"

Belowdecks OBLIO was absolutely beautiful. Her interior is all raw wood; heavy beams and four inch deck planking, massive frames visible at the hull, the huge centerboard well forming the back of the galley. The kitchen-size cast iron stove was putt ing out about 10 million BTU's and there was a half gallon of Chablis on the table.

There were no fewer than three full size kerosene lamps burning and two small ones, plus two brass navigation lanterns with clear glass. Their chimneys had all been cleaned and polished, and the golden light sparkled on the planking of the overhead a nd on all the wooden edges of the frames, and on the spice bottles, and soaked into the black iron frying pans and pots that hang on the bulkheads. OBLIO's cabin was completely, extravagantly, opulently lit from far aft to the forward bulkhead, and alto gether a marvelously beautiful and hospitable sight.

Dale, it appeared, had been deeply hurt that he had made Peter and I uncomfortable. He did understand why, and this rich, warm welcome was his response to our discomfort.

Generosity, in fact, is a primary and essential part of Dale's temperament, and so is hospitality. "Come on over, mate, I've got more beans than I need." If Dale had a religion at all, it would have to include hospitality as its primary virtue, or h e would have none of it, of that I am sure. So it often is with those who have no money at all.

But just as we all live on the water between the poles of what is ordered and disordered, it seems to me Dale had been caught between two of the values he holds highest. One value caused him to draw a weapon needlessly, and the other caused him to po lish his lamp chimneys immaculately in welcome.

In fact, when you think about it, they were the identical value -- the appropriate courtesy between water rats.

I think that is what Beethoven meant about music being the combination of the expected and the unexpected. At least I can attest that it is so in the music the water rats dance to.

 

 

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A Matter of Courtesy
1995 Don Berry