#54 / 2005 Tour 3: Fifth Night at Sea

MEN OF A CERTAIN AGE

#54


Term:

Single hander: someone who sails their ship alone

With the light comes the dark and with the good comes the evil equivalently. On Christmas Eve Joe and I had the most romantic dinner for two out on the sandy beach in Z town.

I couldn´t help but notice two Anglo men sitting at separate tables on each side of us. And I wonder how they came to find themselves so all alone.

It may seem sad, but I have learned that when men reach a certain age and have ostracized themselves from family and friends, there is usually a good reason for it.

We were two days out to sea when Rick confided one of those old skippers, a single hander, had propositioned him. He was an unlikely looking candidate for homosexual leanings, but so was Ernest Hemingway I guess.

So these men back on the beach, maybe they came to Z town for young prostitutes, of which there are many, or something even more sinister.

Accordingly, Rick could have gotten us out in the ocean and said put up or shut up, but of course he didn´t. We have all been lucky here, I think, for our paths to cross, and tonight I am going to sail by the Southern Cross, just like my father. I imagine him looking down on me from heaven, with my beautiful mother beside him, both shaking their heads in love and amazement at me.