The boat builder settles next to me in the sand. Stars are falling in clusters across the sky. He’s been furthering my limited education with a short lecture on meteor rite showers. I’d seen a few before, but could never fully grasp what was happening. The boat builder is not vain or cocky. For the most part he’s quiet like me.
His words when spoken, never prod my insides like a sharp stick. I can tell he is curious about me. I speak with a slight hick accent. He’s seen me at the break-water near the pier and on the main street of our little town. He has seen me walk the long roads above the city in the early evenings. He’s passed by as I stood on a freeway 101 overpass and watched the cars flash past below me.
I see you alone the boat builder says to me, all over town. I’ve also noticed that I’ve never seen you at any beach parties, or concerts, or house parties. Why is that? I work a lot.
I spend all my free time learning how to take care of people. Like a nurse? No, nothing that fancy. I mostly look after grannies. I show up and get paid to let them boss me around. I iron shirts in exchange for fresh eggs every Saturday morning for old lady Garcia. I get ten dollars for pulling weeds a couple hours a week with an 80 year old Greek woman, who doesn’t speak a word of English.
Right now my main job is taking care of three old English sisters five days a week for seven hours a day. One of the three sisters is the widow of a musician from the early years of jazz. The eldest of the three sisters is starting to have long term problems with her balance.
I spend a lot of my time trying to keep up with her in the garden. On some mornings after I serve them tea and toast in bed, they let me iron rolls of linen table clothes hanging in the hall pantry all day. On days when I clean the pool for them, the middle sister will sit and read poetry from old books. Sometimes she just sits and watches birds in the trees through binoculars.
How the hell do you get all of these crazy jobs taking care of people?
I get most of them from my grandmother’s friends.
I get some of them from an older friend who works as a nurse. Those are mostly just errand runs for people who are wealthy, and old with colds.
Those jobs pay really well. I shop for them and piddle around making soup and straightening up the place for them, while they ride out their colds.
Easy money.
In a few weeks I will be leaving for Oregon to take care of a Russian mans grandmother for a year. It will be that long until his sister can come back from Russia to help take care of their grandmother. Who knows where I will be after that.
The boat builder tells me that he is leaving as well in a few weeks. He tells me that he and his family will be traveling to his father’s homeland for 6 months. The boat builder notices that I have caught a chill. He drapes his fine tweed jacket over my shoulders as we walk the short mile from the beach to the long hill.
At the stop sign at the bottom of the long hill, the petite brunette is shifting her car to second as she slowly passes us, glaring at the boat builder as we walk toward the long hill, side by side. Wow, I say as she finally takes off hurling her car towards third gear before disappearing up the hwy 101 on ramp.
What kind-o-hex does that little brunette foresee in your future?
She seems to have you on a shit list of some sort?
Exhaling a deep sigh, the boat builder tells me about an episode that happened between them a few months before. She had verbally abused him and went to great lengths to humiliate him publicly. She liked the things they did in private. Together in public was a whole other story. Seems behind the scenes of their closeted love affair, a new wealthy foreign cock with enough cash to bathe in nightly while coked up, had cast his eye in her direction.
The petite brunette would flaunt herself at the wealthy foreign cock in front of the boat builder. So finally one night, he quit being her fuck toy and wouldn’t take her calls. I know she’s going to come to my house later tonight. She’ll come to see if you’re there with me. Would you like me to be there when she comes to see you? I’d like for you to come over and have a coffee with me and maybe listen to some music, but I don’t want to have to deal with her while I am in the middle of trying to spend time with you.
I’d like a chance to befriend you before we both leave on our journeys. She knows I’m going out of the country and she wants me to fuck her before I go. I don’t want to fuck her ever again. I don’t want to see, feel, hear or smell her. Well if you really never want to see her again and you do want to spend time with me, then you should invite me over and we’ll ignore the door when she shows up.
The boat builder agrees that we should just ignore her if she shows up. We cross the road to the long drive at the top of the long hill and I trip in the dark. My foot gets tangled in overgrown vines, landing me face first into a dark patch of thistles. I’ve covered the boat builder’s lovely tweed coat in prickly thistles. I am in a panic. The boat builder hauls me up out of the dark. I laugh and apologize for getting thistles in his good coat. The boat builder says to hell with the coat are you ok?!
We make our way down the long drive to his front door. We enter into his private yard thru a gate hidden by a large arched wisteria branch. Just inside the door of the boat builders house is a large kitchenette area. He walks me to the main living area thru a wide doorway.
To the left is a heavy oak door slung slightly open by the boat builder as he passes it, explaining that the bathroom is behind this door, when and if I need it. The west wall is filled with large windows that roll open in the main room. They are framed with old wisteria trees groomed to perfection by his mother for the last twenty something years.
I settle myself in a large arm chair and look over the stack of books strewn at the foot of the chair. The boat builder goes back into the kitchen area and puts on a pot of coffee, pulling out a bottle of Grand Mariner, two large cups, setting them on a large wooden tray. Beneath the large rolling windows are oversized drawers in a wooden shelving unit that runs the length of the windows into large closets on each end of the windows. I pull the sheer curtains on the windows and light the candles along the shelf top.
As he enters the room with the coffee tray the boat builder explains to me that the house used to be an old hunting compound built by a group of retired doctors who came to this part of the coast in the late 1920's to hunt pheasant and fish for trout in the springs up the ridge past his family’s property.
We have been settled in talking and drinking coffee for about an hour, when we hear a knock at the door. The boat builder is in the middle of a story about learning to sail when the knocks interrupt his story, making his face turn sour. Neither of us says a word. The knocking continues. I watch as the boat builders face churns with all kinds of emotion. He is uneasy.
I lean toward the boat builder and whisper, are you certain that you never want to see her again? Because if you are, I’d be happy to answer that knocking door for you and send her on her way so you can finish telling me your story about sailing. I mean, it's the least I can do after mucking up your tweed coat the way I did. I won’t do anything to intimidate her at all. I will be very polite, but I can almost guarantee you that she will never again knock on your door looking for cock in the middle of the night. I tip the large coffee cup to my lips and drink the last gulp.
I stand up and begin to remove my clothes while walking towards the door. The boat
builder is stunned silent. I take a candle from the shelf and make my way to the glass entry door being knocked upon.
I stand in front of the door holding out the candle from my naked body and let the words can I help you leave my lips as I twist the door knob opening the door. The petite brunette is shocked by my naked candle wielding body. She steps back a step to take in the full view of my glorious being and asks me in a shocked mutter if the boat builders was home?
I explained to her that the boat builder was in fact at home, but was rather busy at the moment and then asked her if there was anything that I could assist her with? No she stammered, turning she disappeared into the dark. I shut the door and walk back into the boat builder’s main living area.
The boat builder stood speechless with my clothes in his hand. I redress myself and settle back into the boat builder’s chair and remind him of where he left off in his story about sailing. The boat builder looks unsteady for a second. He settles onto the other over stuffed chair across from me and pours more coffee and grand mariner into our cups.
We talk until dawn.
The petite brunette never knocks on his door again.
