Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)
An Eastern rig of similar configuration to the Christine Denise, the fishing boat in this week’s Six. Note: net drum on the stern, one of the pair of gallows frame on rail next to wheelhouse and, forward, the doghouse (access down to the foc’sle) just in front of the mast (with a red arc of a life preserver on the side).
This is the Wakefield Doctrine’s contribution to the Six Sentence Story bloghop.
Run by Denise
This week, what say we get some backstory on one our favorite characters, Ian Devereaux?
This week’s prompt word:
Board
“Requesting permission to come on board,” seeing how I’d already stepped off the gunnel of the Eastern rig, Christine Denise, I was fairly certain that gravity wouldn’t insist on an explicit assent to my request; the owner/captain, standing next to the main hatch to the fish hold was clearly an adherent of the belief that gravity trumps social niceties, nodded towards the bow, “Pick yourself a bunk, Mr. Devereaux, and as soon as the other two hands get here, we’ll ice up at the co-op and head out.”
The boat was eighty-five feet long, the wheelhouse was aft and the foc’sle was forward; being an old wooden boat, it had an oil-fired black-iron stove for cooking and heat, a soapstone sink with a mechanical hand-pump for water, up against the bulkhead dividing the crew quarters from fish-hold and, on the port side, an ice box plentifully supplied with the shaved ice that filled half the empty fish-hold; an empty five gallon bucket with a frayed yellow nylon halyard was back at the stern, the lazarette (behind the wheelhouse) allowed shelter when answering nature’s call in the winter or other inclement weather.
As soon as I stood both feet on the asphalt squares covering the deck, I was struck by something, either a smell or an odor or a scent, I knew with non-rational certainty it was of a home assigned to me like some Jungian archetype, so in tune with my true nature I need not be concerned with understanding; both a reveille and lullaby it was salt air laced with the iodine smell of dried seaweed and rotting fish, a vin de mémoire, with a diesel exhaust finish.
I laughed at the life-script logic that took me from a Bachelor’ of Arts in psychology to half-a-JD degree, (from Harvard, no less), to commercial fisherman; in my defense, my wife Haley was two semesters from graduating with an offer from the top law firm in Rhode Island; seeing how we lived in Narragansett, which was home to more fishing trawlers than boutique law firms, it only made sense for me to quit school and provide for our future life together working as a deckhand.
“We’re bound at six this evening for Hudson Canyon, looking for fluke,” the captain walked down the slope of the deck along the starboard side, past the twin hydraulic winches and sat on the rail just behind the gallows frame where currently one of the two steel otter doors was wedged; tow wire ran outboard on either side of the boat, and when dragging the net, would disappear into the ocean behind us.
It occurred to me I might have found my natural environment, one in which ninety-degree angles and straight-lines were the exception rather than the rule and the horizon was not a destination as much as it was a reminder that some places in life are not meant to be reached.
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About clarkscottroger
I have smelled that scent you describe, and this was another enjoyable six! Now if I could only get on a boat like that and travel :)
thank you, Em… it (being in such a vessel) would be something*
*fast? no
reassuring in a heavy sea? absolutely
What a delightful story, brought back so many memories of younger days.
thank you!!!
A sea voyage! How exciting. Pretty name for a boat, too :)
lol ty C!
Good point at the end about the horizon being a place that one is not destined to reach.
Thanks Frank… the horizon thing is something that used to occur to me, especially when returning from a trip… I believe, on the open ocean, the horizon is seven miles away… but I could be mistaken
There is something about being on the water. It’s adventure just to watch the sea, being on it is a special privilege.
way
Here’s my compliment: you write this so well that I felt queasy :)
Born to be aboard a boat. The final sentence is one I’ll remember.
I kinda agree with that. It’s not exactly fun, but more along the lines of feeling right.
Hard work in all weathers, I would presume… worse in some! :)
yeah and tedious (except during the life-threatening times).
My favorite saying about commercial fishing, “It’s like being in prison, except you can drown.”
lol
Great six, that last sentence sums it all up.
Thanks, Greg
Anchors away and cost off the lines…time to roll with the ocean!
Incredible detail. And that smell – so very distinctive.
My 2 favorite sentences are 3 and 6.
James is a very nice touch!
Favourite expression – vin de mémoire.
And great evocative descriptions.
The horizon fascinates me. On my first trip to France – the Dover to Calais crossing – I cemented my love of the country and decided i wouldn’t leave the deck until France was no longer in sight. It was bitterly cold and I was practically frozen stiff when we got into Dover, France still visible in the distance!
Thankee, Miz 9
I spent a lot of time (at a certain time in my history) trying to relate myself to horizons. (As a clark, it offers the perfect expression or metaphor or analogy or anadiplosis or whatever) because as Outsiders we are trapped in the only definition that makes sense. (If hope you or any other Reader are not thinking, ‘But, it makes sense. How else might a person discover the truth).
thanks (and sorry)
lol
I enjoyed the last one and a half lines.
Me t