Anchored (Part 1)
I am sitting on a park bench between black cottonwoods five feet away from a Willamette River running fast and brown after heavy rains. All manner of driftwood flows past me, including some logs the size of cars. Across the channel, a man stands near a fire in the willows.
Someone has carved a three-leaf clover in the bench. Why only three? Why not dream and carve four?
It's a cold and bright Sunday morning and I've brought my 20+ year-old AlphaSmart 3000 word processor to watch the river, let it roil my mind, and write up my impressions. I had to laugh the other day when I read an essay in the New Yorker that proclaimed the AlphaSmart the revolutionary analogue throwback device for writers to avoid distractions and get the writing done. Ha! I've know that for 25 years! These word processors have been the secret weapon to my becoming a writer and here I am with one in my lap at this very moment.
Behind me, 50 people and their dogs cavort in the grass and mud. Several of the dogs come up to me and say hello.
Fifty yards away, a small dock bobbed up and down, and with it, a tethered and weathered sail boat with the curious name of Now Voyager. A bicycle was strapped to the deck. A couple of tattered tarps offered protection from the elements. The boat flies a tiny tattered American flag and the traditional pirate standard, which strikes me as the perfect colors for a vessel in the rag tag fleet of New American Diaspora.
I guess he isn't technically homeless since he's living on a boat. He still has to carry water and fuel back to the boat. The restroom at the park is currently locked, so there's that to deal with. I think he has a solar panel for power. Somehow, he probably has Wi-Fi.
Near the boat was a sign that reads: Maximum moorage 3 hours per day. No overnight moorage. The Now Voyager had been moored there at least a year, possibly longer. In all my visits to the park, I had never seen the captain of the vessel. I also had never seen the vessel not in dock.
This morning, there he is, wearing a black hoodie and black stocking cap. I put him in his mid 40s.
He fires up the engine and it sputters to life. I'm finally going to see this ship sail! Where the hell would it go?
Thirty yards downstream, another member of the fleet, a smaller, equally weathered sail boat with no name, is slowly and strangely twirling in the water. This is the same boat with multiple tarps on deck that has been anchored off the dock for a year. In all my visits to the park, I had never seen its captain. I had always seen it where it was twirling right now.
Now I see the captain of the no name boat. He's a younger looking man trying to repair something on deck. He's cursing and clanging metal. I think it's an issue with his anchor because he's holding one in his hands. It's attached to chain and rope.
I hear the captain of the Now Voyager call out to him, offering help. They begin a discussion I can't follow. A minute later, the Now Voyager lurches away from the dock and heads toward the other boat. It's some kind of rescue mission.