Line up the car and trailer as straight as you can.
I'm tired, Miriam. When you asked me to scatter your ashes at sea,
I should have remembered it’s been, what? Eight, nine years
since we had the boat out? Tires flat on the trailer, carb all gummed
up. But here I am, playing the Old Man and the Sea with a basket of
ashes instead of a marlin. I've no business at my age being out past
the breakwater. Your water broke at the bowling alley and I thought
you spilled your drink. “Honey, that's not club soda.”
Start backing slowly. Duke was a hard labor. He
would have helped, if I asked. Why am I doing this alone? “Damfino,”
like the name of Buster Keaton's boat. Father Gomez offered to come
with me. Safer, but he'd steal the show: “Into die hands, Oh
Lor', we commen' her spirit,” all the pat phrases in that bracero
accent. Better without witnesses. Did Hemmingway's Old Man survive?
Can't remember. “Slipped over the side, cracked his head, poor
old fool, no business out there alone.”
Steer “backwards”—turn the car’s
rear end right to make the trailer start turning left. Along
in here is good, halfway between two buoys. Near where you caught
that halibut. Big swells for a burial ground. Burial groundswells.
You hated my puns, but I never could resist. You said you aren’t
a true believer, more of a “Seeker.” I said, “There’s
a seeker born every minute,” and you slapped me. Kill the engine,
hope she doesn’t broach. Untangle the harness, check the slipknot
on the basket. Haven't tied a double sheep's bend with a slip for
years, but once an eagle scout, always an eagle scout. Duke never
got past second class, with me pushing all the way. Once a pushy asshole,
always a pushy asshole. Ashy pushole?
Wait until the turn is established on the curve you want.
Lean over the side. Dizzy. Careful. Water's so cold, all the life
jacket would do is keep my corpse afloat. Wash up to some little nipper’s
sandcastle, scare him half to death. I’m way more than halfway
to death myself. 98, 99 percent? Always thought I'd go first, Miriam,
but you beat me to it. Just like cribbage, you'd count points I missed
in my own hand. “Pay attention or I’ll peg you into oblivion
again.”
Then turn the wheel in the opposite, “normal”
direction. Lower it down slowly, time the swell, let the
basket float and slowly fill with seawater. Imagine there being a
website on the best way to scatter ashes. Okay, starting to sink.
The top layer of daisies floats off. Ah, that's lovely. Your favorite
flower, Miriam, drifting on the tide. Three florists I had to call
to find them in November. Ashes to splashes, dust to rust. If sod
don’t get you, then sea level must.
When the trailer drifts off line one way, steer the car
the opposite way. Now pull the ripcord, dump the basket.
That’s slick. Ashes float out like milk in water, a cloud in
a green sky. Into die waves, Oh Ocean, I suspend her atoms. How far
will they disperse, how soon settle to the bottom to be sucked up
by clams? You made the best clam chowder, Miriam, all those years
we camped at Pismo with Duke. Did we ever eat a trace of someone else's
wife and mother? Cannibals unaware. I could lean just a little farther,
follow you to the bottom, make it 100 percent. But I'm so close to
the end anyway. Like I told the clerk at WalMart, “Extended
warranty? Hell, at my age I don't even buy green bananas.”
Think of it as trying to make the trailer go further
the wrong way. Getting really rough, time to bug out. My
old pal Mike could handle this better than me, but he's dead what,
ten years now? Remember that time he and Joy took us up the delta
in that ratty Chris Craft? Lost the shear pin twice, propeller once.
Remembered the brandy but forgot the tool box. What a drunken boat
ride. Le Bateau Ivre, by that French poet, what the hell
was his name? And another brain cell bites the dust. Could use a shot
of brandy right now, cut this wind climbing up my backside. Calmer
inside the breakwater. “Honey, that’s not club soda.”
Looks like the Old Man’s going to make port one more time.
Make small corrections early, rather than large corrections
too late. Do you think Duke drinks too much? Now you're gone,
Duke and I are really drifting apart. I want to say something but
it seems like none of my business. Not much is my business these days.
This little cruise was the last interesting thing on my To Do list.
From now on it’s weeding your garden, what’s left of it.
Feeding the dog, what’s left of him. Why do they call them dog
years, anyway? Multiplying by seven gives you human years, doesn’t
it? Tie off at the end of the dock. Still pretty choppy. I better
back the trailer in pretty damn quick.
If the trailer jackknifes, pull forward, straighten out and
try again. If I took the 12-gauge exit like Hemmingway, who'd
miss me? Besides the dog? Line up the car and trailer, ease back.
Duke could use the money--house, car, insurance. But if it’s
obvious, it voids the life insurance. Oops, going off line. Got to
calm down, dry my eyes. You’d say it’s a mortal sin, Miriam:
voids the afterlife insurance. I run hot and cold, hot tears on cold
face. Pull up and straighten out. That's better, keep it straight.
Okay Miriam, I’ll do it your way, but it’s hard to wait.
I love you so much. Into the water, just up to the fender tops. You’re
gone and I’m old, but I’m still pretty good at backing
a trailer.
Patrick Fanning is a writer, publisher, and painter
who lives in Sonoma County.
