women . . .
It was a path that soon fixed my attention on last night’s conversation with Hannah.
Friday evening, her mother’s bingo night a week away, I was taking the lady to dinner. An actual date. Not a typical catch-kill-and-grill at my place, either. We would travel by car, not boat—well, by truck actually—to a fine restaurant, a place with tablecloths, mojitos, and the best Yucatán shrimp on the islands. Later, maybe stop by the lab to have coffee beneath the stars—Hannah’s suggestion, not mine. Which still rattled me because, as I reminded myself yet again, to the Hannah Smiths of this world, a date is not just a date, and the bedroom—if that ever happened—meant a hell of a lot more than a recreational romp.
Spooky, indeed, yet I’d felt unexpected relief after our talk. Almost as if I’d been waiting to breathe for a short time and could suddenly heave my chest full and enjoy the next big breath to come. No explaining it—I barely knew the woman. Not really. But that good feeling was still with me while my mind returned to browsing: oil pressure, water temp, all gauges good . . . nudge the rpms up to 4500 . . . next lab project . . . women, sex: Hannah naked, or even topless, my god!
That was something fun to visualize, and I did while I turned the boat southeast and typed in a digital heading of 147 degrees. Hit autopilot, a sip of tea, reduced radio volume, looked to port, starboard, spun around for a look aft, then my brain resumed scanning mode.
Weather radar: Pod of squalls, red dots off the Tortugas . . . how the hell do you reduce range? Remote toggles? No . . . touch screen . . . Hannah’s a big girl, too, solid . . . so I walk in, no way of knowing, and there she is in my bed, blouse unbuttoned, one long leg canted just so—she pulls a stunt like that, what’s she expect me to do?
Open the Plexiglas shield, punch buttons but without much confidence, engage the radar system I did not need on this clear black morning, a rim of orange heat fast expanding in the east. My mind still streaming:
Too damn many electronics, screws my night vision . . . the dimmer button, where is it? Or . . . better yet, find Hannah waiting in panties and bra, nipples right there under a meshy sort of material and she knows it! . . . Pale nipples, or maybe darker, when the straps slide off her shoulders—unless some drunk knocks on the door . . . or if the dog . . .
I closed the cabinet and sat, unaware of what I’d done, as the flow of consciousness continued: . . . or if the dog, humm, the dog—the owner, bet he’s gotten the forms by now. Damn it all, was getting rid of that dog a mistake? No . . . screw it, hair all over my sheets, with a woman lying in bed waiting, her bra on the floor, wearing nothing but . . . Humm?
Interesting diversion: By definition, is a woman actually naked if there’s a ring on her finger? Argue all I wanted, Hannah would by god expect it!
The radar system booted, the screen sweeping pixelated circles around the Zodiac: BLIP . . . BLIP . . . BLIP . . . Then suddenly faster: BLIP-BLIP-BLIP . . .
I studied the screen a moment, thinking: That can’t be right.
The pulse increased, the sound of an accelerating heartbeat: BLIP-BLIP-BLIP . . . BLIP-BLIP-BLIP . . .
Out loud, I said, “What the hell’s wrong with the radar?”
BLIP-BLIP-BLIP-BLIP-BLIP! Then a chiming warble—a collision alarm.
“Jesus Christ, there’s nothing out here to hit!”
Four minicomputer screens aglow in video game colors: depth, navigation, Doppler weather, and the digital ping of radar. So why the alarm? Why two boat icons, one red, one yellow, on a collision course, not a hundred yards between them according to the grid?
I stood and raised my voice: “What the hell’s going on!”
At sea, or in a car, whenever unsure of what lies ahead, you slow down and continue slowing until your brain ferrets out the puzzle. So I did, backing throttles gradually, feeling the Zodiac teeter, stern-heavy, as the engines dropped into a trough of their own making. In a boat, when slowing, you also always, always look behind you to make sure some inattentive idiot isn’t about to climb your