if nothing whatsoever had happened. The jib was furled, and the rain made her deck gleam.
It was a little tilty, I said.
Back in Bocas, the night before we were going to sail across the Golfo de los Mosquitos, I learned about the tormentas. I’d spent five or six hours trying to install a new compressor. We were ready to sail, but I kept thinking there was more to be done, that it wasn’t perfect. We weren’t perfectly ready, so I went to the marina bar to have a beer & try to calm down.
The marina bar was just a square slab of wood lined w/ stools. The bartender was hardly ever there so you could just reach on in and grab yourself a Stag. The night was mild. Gusty, though. Christmas lights swung in the wind. The bar sat on a patchy field some distance from the outbuildings. I grabbed a beer & drank half of it in one pull. Everything during rainy season felt hurried. You never knew when the sky would open up & drill you in the skull w/ rain.
The man appeared suddenly. There were no streetlights. At the dock hung one interrogation-bright light, but then there were just these gaps of night hiding everything else.
Hola, he said, taking a seat across from me.
It was Se?or Know-It-All, the bully from the boatyard. I took a long, squinty pull of my Stag before answering. Either he didn’t remember making fun of me before or he thought we were cool.
What’s up, I said.
You go to sea soon? he said. Your boat look really—he gave an admiring tsk—really good. She a nice boat.
Thanks, I said. You guys did great work.
Yeah, they see everything, my guys. They see every kind of boat. Every kind of problem. He reached down into the bar, pulled out a beer, popped the cap off against the bar. Everybody stop here in Bocas. So people make sure, they ask us. What’s going on? Where they are charging you money? Where they pirates? Where you go get stuck? Yeah. I think everything OK with you. Except you rename the boat—
Yeah, you told me that already.
And also, it’s stormy season.
Well, it’s not hurricane season, I said.
Still storm season, he said. No hurricanes, still storms.
Suddenly, I couldn’t stand to sit there anymore. After all that work, I had failed to adequately install the compressor—it wasn’t right & I knew it—I had 10 minutes for a beer before I had to get back home to an angry wife & kids w/ rain-induced fungus growing in between their toes. The next morning I was about to sail them all across the Golfo de los Mosquitos.
Thanks again for the advice, I said.
No problem, he said.
I patted my shirt pocket to pay. Nothing. I patted the pocket of my shorts. I had forgotten my wallet.
My friend pointed his beer at me.
Don’t worry, he said. Honor system. You pay whenever you like. You pay in a couple years when you come sailing back the other way. Come right out through the Canal and come over here and have a beer. Tell me how it was. Say, What’s up? Here, he imitated my voice. What’s up? He said again, amused. What’s up? Remember me? Dave Cowboy?
For some reason, I found this funny too. He did a pretty good imitation of me, speaking in an exaggerated, frat-boy gurgle.
What’s up, he gurgled. Remember me? I owe two dollars for a beer I drink ten years ago!
That’s good, I said. You’ll have to play me in the movie.
At this, he laughed too, slapping the bar. I think we both felt better.
I stood to go. He looked sad to see me go. It was probably a familiar pattern with him. He wanted an audience so badly but he was such an intolerable asshole nobody would hang around long enough. He stopped chuckling & nodded