Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ever since that experience I found that I could never fall asleep if I had the slightest inkling that I should not for any reason. I have since called it my three circles in tall grass syndrome. I came up with that name after I had watched this springier spaniel make three complete circles before it would lie down anywhere to go to sleep. I guess I could have called it my springier spaniel syndrome.
I was very weary, and I could not imagine enduring much more of anything. The rest I longed for would surely bring death. Yet still, it would be so easy to just lie down and die. I knew I had to keep trying until not a muscle remained that could support my frame. I was determined to fight for every moment until I lost consciousness and it was all taken out of my hands. God himself would have to take my life; I would not lie down. I was in such misery that secretly I hoped I would soon fall down and be unable to get up; perhaps then I would just peacefully drift off to sleep and unbeknownst to me never wake up. Until then I would push on.
It was difficult not to trip over the jagged and uneven surface of the frozen pack ice. I found myself face down on the jagged ice. I closed my eyes and tried to retreat into the depths of my beleaguered mind, hoping that some where in those dark recesses that I could escape the discomfort of my reality. But this only made things worse; I found that deep in the recesses and back rooms of my mind a song was playing. It was one of those things that just will just keep singing in your mind and you can’t get it out. I recognized the song; it was a Bony M song called Brown girl in the ring.
Brown girl in the ring tra la la la la!
There’s a Brown girl in the ring tra la la la!
And she looks like something something something!
Every note, every instrument rang perfectly within my ears, but the words were unclear, yet this repetitious tune was relentless and continued to plague me; I had awakened a monster.
I forced myself to my feet, and struggled to move forward. But all that would happen is that I would lose my balance and fall on my face. Each time I fell; I tried to see if I could get up, and each time that I had made it to my feet, I was disappointed. I just wanted a way out, an exit that was not my choosing. By this time, the relentless tune in my head was driving me mad. Sometimes, I would sing along with it, hoping that once I had done that, and completed the song that perhaps a new song would replace it. However, it was remorseless; “Brown girl in the ring!” had burned a path through my mind.
I had fallen again and this time skinned my shin against a hard piece of rough cut ice, it felt sickeningly like I had broken my leg, and I think I hoped I had actually broken my leg. I again struggled to see if I could get to my feet, I was not trying as hard this time, I was hoping to convince myself that I could not get up. However, this time as I lifted my head to catch the horizon to find my balance, something caught my eye. Is that a light? I could hardly allow myself to believe it, but I thought I saw something.
I stared intensely, I could see what appeared to be a light, but was it? Was the light just something in my head? Was it something in my eye? Damaged retina or just strained eyes, I squinted and tried to focus on the light source. I was afraid that there was nothing there, that all I was seeing were flashes in my brain, not anything that was real at all. But no, there actually was something there; it was a strobe light, like one might see on a radio tower or something.
The more I looked the more I saw, there was a small dark mass rising out of the ice, and it had a strobe light on it! What is it? …a weather station? Or is it just a navigation buoy? Whatever it is it would be better than nothing. This renewed my strength and so I made for the light. Focusing all my energy towards this one goal finally gave me the distraction I needed from the discomfort of my circumstance; no longer could I feel the cold or how weak and tired I was. Yet still, that unyielding song continued to assault the recesses of my mind; Brown girl in the ring tra la la la la! It taunted me as if to see I still had no chance.
I was tired and weak, and so I kept tripping and falling, losing my balance for no reason sometimes and just falling over sideways. These times however, I feared that I would not be able to get up each time. I at least now had the hope that I would, but with the hope came the fear that I could not. That which we fear most seems to overcome us, and this was no different. Like some predictable nightmare, I found myself falling to the ground. The faint dark blue horizon suddenly seemed to roll vertical, and I found myself slammed into the ice hard onto my side, my temple scrubbing hard against a jagged chunk of ice.
Wincing with pain I tried to get up, but I could not. In my panic, I seemed unable to form the motor commands to perform the slightest movements of my muscles. I was as if paralyzed. Why can’t I get up? What is going on? I could not seem to form the proper thoughts to make my limbs move. What once was automatic or subconscious was no longer occurring. I wanted to put my hands down on the ice and push myself up, but I could not even make my arms twitch. It was as if I was frozen in the night terrors of my youth, desperately trying to scream but unable to even produce a pathetic squeak.
What’s wrong? I wondered; I can’t remember how to move! I can’t recall how to think the thoughts that make things move! I laid there terrified more and more by the minute, all the time that song mercilessly playing in my head. I was consciously trying to do things that were normally automatic; I had to somehow just let them happen, but I was unable to. My sudden fear of the worst had caused panic, and my panic was blocking my mind from doing simple automatic commands.
I have to relax, calm down, breath, that’s it, I can breathe okay; now look around, yeah that’s it; see how easy it is to move my eyes? Now the same way, try to move your arm, its okay don’t think about it, think about something else, anything think of anything, anything at all. I consciously tried to reconnect the broken motor circuits in my brain. But I couldn't even think of anything else but moving my arms and legs so I remained paralyzed. Then I began hear that song become louder and louder, it seemed to be rising against me. Just like that long legged man in the nightmares of my youth it seemed to stride towards me, getting louder and louder with every step. I felt all those old fears return once again seeking to overcome me. I saw myself as that little boy standing firm against that long legged monster; terrified but courageous.
It was as if he was still standing guard after all these years. He turned and gave me a look, there was a fire in his eyes that caused all those fears turn to anger and then all of a sudden I found myself struggling to my feet. It was surreal; it was as if I was back in the Milliken house that morning after I had first stood down that monster of my nightmares. I couldn’t help but wonder; was it ironic that those nightmares of my youth that I thought were pure horror actually were the instrument of my salvation this day? Was it all planned? Did it all have this purpose? It was too much to comprehend; it’s one of those things that you only think about this once.
I made way for the structure, concentrating on my balance, focusing on my target. Each step I took moved me closer; I watched my feet move as fast as they could. After several minutes I gauged my progress. It seemed that I should have been a lot closer than I was. Pushing on further, and still I was not as close as it seemed I should be. How far away is that thing? I realized that it must be a lot farther away than I had anticipated, and a lot larger. After another half-hour of forced hiking it still seemed to be very far off, but it was noticeably larger now, the outline of a ship could clearly be seen against the midnight sky.
This excited me even more, a weather station or buoy would have been most likely unmanned, but a ship would have a full crew. I feared that it was moving away and I would not catch it, but for now it seemed to be stopped. My legs were killing me; lactic acid was building up in my abused muscles. I had to push on, but again I was feeling defeated, I was too tired, and the ship was even farther than I had calculated it could have possibly been.
It took over an hour of dogged determination to get close enough to the ship that I could allow myself to believe I might find rescue. The ship now loomed large before me, it was huge, and it blacked out the whole horizon from my view, yet I was not yet within shouting distance. I pushed on and when I got closer I could see that it was an ice breaker, it was stopped for some reason, but I had no way of knowing why. I began to shout as loud as I could, but I could scarcely make enough sound to reach the high decks.
I approached the side of the ship; the ice was packed tight against her huge hull, as she sat tight in the swath she had cut. I began to walk the length of her, calling out as loud as I could as I went. Wherever I could reach I pounded my fist against the ships thick hull, but I knew that I could not penetrate it with any sound, it was hopeless. I was sure I would die right there out side the ship and that she would steam off and never know I ever came calling.
About halfway along the side of the vessel I found a deck; it was no more than four feet off the ice. It was recessed back like the porch on a duplex house. There were footsteps in the snow on the ice. People! There have been people walking on the ice outside the ship! I was so excited; this meant that there was some easy way into the ship from the ice surface. I reached up and grabbed the handrail and pulled myself onto the lower deck.
There was a bulkhead door at the back of the recessed deck way. I tried the handle; the steel was cold and grabbing it turned my already numb hands into clubs of frozen flesh. I struggled to work the handle, and once I figured out which way to swing it, it began to turn without too much difficulty. I swung the hatch inward and felt the blast of hot air flow over my body. I quickly stepped in and closed the hatch tight behind me. I leaned my back against the nearest wall and slid down it exhausted and spent.
My feet were frozen; I unwrapped them and let the warm air sooth them. I was so thirsty, so hungry, so tired. I had to find someone, I was afraid that if I fell asleep I still might die, I needed medical attention. I got to my feet and staggered down the long hall. It seemed to stretch the width of the ship, halfway or so were a couple of passageways. I took a look down them and found that they led to a noisy engine room, but I could see no one there.
I went to the far end and found some stairs leading up. I climbed them on my hands and knees till I got to the top where there was another hatch type door. I tried to open it but I could not, it was locked or something. Maybe it wasn't locked, but by that time I was so worn out I may have not been able to figure out which way to turn the wheel. I would have to wait for someone to find me. It was extra warm in the engine room, so I decided I would find some place to get comfortable there and warm up while I waited.
I found a little spot off the walkway where I could curl up without too much discomfort. I grabbed all my stuff and used the blankets and foot wrap for a pillow and the roar of the giant engines overcame the song playing in my head. I let the clatter of huge engines sing me to sleep. It felt like Christmas Eve, I couldn’t wait for what morning would bring. I recalled my brother Dan and me listening to the little transistor radio on Christmas Eve many years ago.
We were still living at the Milliken house; we listened intently to the scratchy little radio as giant snowflakes floated slowly past our bedroom window. Everything was covered in a fresh blanket of snow, and from our upstairs window we had a pristine view. The Disc jockeys were reporting on UFO sightings, describing them as a tiny sled and eight tiny reindeer. They were reporting on its progress and at some point they reported that it was in our area. We pressed our faces against the cold glass of the window looking to see if we could spot it. Christmas carols played in-between news reports about the sleigh. The anticipation that built up that night was never again matched, until now. I then drifted off into a beautiful deep sleep.
I woke up once or twice, just to see if it was all-real, I never thought I would see artificial light again, or feel the blast of real heat, it all seemed too good to be true. I was alive, I was warm, and I had a few aches and pains, but nothing that I could care less about now. The steel grate I was curled up on felt as comforting as a mother’s breast. It was joyful, and I knew there would be joy in the morning. I went back to sleep:
I must have dreamed a thousand dreams, my mind racing yet relaxed, and I felt so good I could have oozed right through that steel grating. The contrast from wanting to just die a few short hours earlier till now was absolutely mind boggling. And I was warm, all over, inside and out, I wasn't taking one molecule of warm air for granted, I loved them all. Soon I would be home again, I had lost the boat, spent most of my savings on it, and there was no insurance. But that's okay; I would simply cash in my Enron stock when I got back and live off that for the rest of my life. Everything was going to be all right.
I was dreaming wonderful dreams; it was as if something in my subconscious was rewarding me for finding a warm place to sleep. I was flooded in well being, my dreams were only interrupted by my decision to say, "Not now, let me sleep" and then I would drift off into the black veil of sleep. It was while resting so comfortably that I suddenly felt an incredible pain in my side, and then I felt it again worse. Then again, this time in my stomach, I doubled up tight in pain. Then I felt my head getting pounded.
I awoke and looked up to see an angry sailor kicking me with his big boots as hard as he could. The anger and hate in his eyes was piercing. He kept kicking me, I tried to protect myself, but he kicked me in the face so hard I blacked out. I came to while he was dragging me down the hall in a choke hold and he was yelling in some foreign language that I did not know. He opened the hatch to the lower outside deck. I felt the cold air blowing through it as it rushed in.
He was trying to throw me outside; he had to momentarily loosen his grip to work the door and so before he could get a better hold of me I broke free. He lunged at me to grab me, I took a swing at him, but in my poor state I doubt he even noticed. I managed to get a hold of his jacket and I held onto it at tight as I could; concentrating all my effort onto that grip. I noticed a couple of more people running down the hall towards us; I hoped that they would be on my side, but I knew this was doubtful.
Outside on the deck he was trying to throw me over the handrail and off the ship, he had me bent backwards over the railing with tremendous force. But I would not let my grip loosen, I had both hands clenched tightly to his coat, it was as if in a death grip. My feet came off the deck and I felt myself going over the rail. I hung on tight. We both crashed into the surface of the ice below and for a moment we lay stunned in a pile on top of each other.
I still held onto him as tight as I could. Enraged the man tried to get up to beat me some more, but he slipped and fell against the hull of the ship and slipped into the icy water through an opening in the ice. He fell with me holding onto him, and this rolled me over into the water on top of him. The shock of the cold water took my breath away and caused me to loose my grip on him. I scrambled to get my arms back onto the top of the ice.
While I was pulling myself out of the water the man who had so brutally attacked me was struggling desperately to escape the water himself and I could see he was panicking, trying to grab for any handhold he could. He narrowly missed the edge of the ice with his hand and disappeared under the ice. I had mixed emotions about this, my short relationship with this fellow was not going well, and he had less than endeared himself to me. Perhaps I am guilty of that, for I hesitated, it took me a moment to realize that I should try to rescue him, and he didn't have a moment to spare.
Even at that, I can't say that I was rescuing him for his sake, I had realized at that same moment that it was probably in my best interest to try to save him. I rolled myself back into the water, this time it was just as painfully cold; though the shock of it had passed. I could not feel him under the water anywhere, so I had to swim down to search for him. It was pitch black so I had to feel for him. I kept my eyes tightly shut; I feared that opening them in this cold salty water might instantly freeze them. I reached my arms about and got a hold of him by his belt loop on his pants.
I made for the surface, but he was too heavy, his steel-toed boots and heavy jacket were weighing him down. I felt him struggling but he was not focusing his efforts toward the surface, he was just panicking. I feared he would get a hold of me and in a panic death grip drown me. Luckily I had him by his back belt loop and his arms could not reach me. I tried as hard as I could, time was running out, I tried one last push, getting behind and just shoving him at the surface.
This caused me to submerge even deeper and I felt myself sliding against the hull of the ship and slipping under it. I thought that maybe if the guy broke the surface of the water his mates would be there by now to grab him. I made a mad dash for the surface, it was farther than I thought, for a moment I nearly gave up, but I gave one last kick for the surface. I broke through the water surface and into the minus thirty eight-degree weather. By the time I got a hold of the ice and dragged my self on top of it my clothes were already freezing solid. The bitter cold bit right through me, it actually felt colder than being in the water, and I felt hopelessness overcoming me.
Exhausted, I rolled away from the water. I was unsure if they had caught the guy out of the water or not. But I was so numb from the cold now I could not even feel them kicking me. The two remaining guys were now kicking and beating me perhaps venting the stress of the loss of their mate. At some point I passed out, so this is how it ends, was my last conscious thought. After that I don’t know for sure what happened, all I recall are some disconnected images.
I recall waking up at one point in some jail cell, and finding my face stuck to the floor in a pool of dried blood. Someone was yelling something at me, I tried to understand what they were saying, but I could not. I recall that the walls were all bright white, and that the lights were very bright, I'm pretty sure that it was the brig of the icebreaker I was in. The man shouting at me came into the cell and seemed very angry. I can’t face this… was my last thought, after that I don't recall anything for what seemed to be a very long time.
I awoke from my coma several weeks later. I was in some gray stone walled building, it was cold damp and drafty. There was a young nurse at my bedside, and when I awoke she greeted me with a smile. In her eyes I saw genuine concern, something deep inside me connected with that look. I found I could not unlock my gaze from her eyes; it was as if I was able to draw emotional strength from the center of her soul. I was like a dry sponge, a desiccant, and I was absorbing as much moisture as I could from her well of pity.
She spent many hours at my side over the next few weeks, and my strength returned slowly. My leg had been broken and my arm as well; and they had not been set properly and they were healing rather crooked. I also could tell that all my ribs probably had been broken in the assault. I was healing, but I was unaware of what my fate would be. My nurse spoke no English, and I didn't even know for sure what language she was speaking, let alone understand it. However, I assumed it was Russian.
One morning I woke up, it had been a good week; I had stood on my own feet, and been able to limp to the bathroom, a smelly room with a honey bucket across the hall. It was then I realized that I was in some kind of prison hospital, guards were set at the ends of the halls, and they were armed with what I think would have been AK-47 assault riffles. They watched me suspiciously as I entered the door-less bathroom.
But this would be my last day there, the pretty young nurse came in, her countenance different, she did not engage me with her deep hazel eyes, instead she seemed to be avoiding any eye contact. Had I done something inappropriate? I wondered. I tried to catch her eyes, she had been my only strength, but she briskly went about a few trivial chores, with out as much as a glance in my direction. "Water…" I rasped, pointing at my mouth, my throat dry and scratchy, but I was thirstier for her attention than for the water.
She very mechanically grabbed the carafe and poured me a cup, and placed it on the bedside table, she didn't say a word, not that I would have understood her anyway. But I didn't bother to drink it. I watched her move about the room, I longed for that warmth, that concern, her caring. I needed to know that there was at least one person in the world who knew about what I was going through, and cared. Her empathy somehow made it easier for me.
The big olive green door swung open and three armed men entered, I didn't know if they were army, police, or guards, but they had come for me. They shouted orders at me; at least that is what I assumed they were shouting. Whatever it was I had not reacted quickly enough or something, and they yanked me hard out of the bed like I was some kind of rag doll. I was surprised at how strong they were, or perhaps I was a lot lighter than I thought I was.
They threw me to the ground, jammed me against the wall, and chained my hands and feet together with ice cold hard steel bindings. They must store them outside for some reason, was my thought. They then jerked me to my feet, yelling at me the whole time. They shoved me towards the door, I turned to look at my nurse, and I saw the strain in her eyes, as if she was fighting back tears. My captors must have taken my look towards her as disobedience or aggression, and they hit me hard with the butt of their rifles.
They dragged out of the building and into the back of a waiting paddy wagon type truck. We drove along some beaten up snow covered road for several miles. From what I could see there were few trees if any, and I was sure that I was somewhere in northern Russia. We entered through some gates into some kind of heavily walled compound; I could see rows of coiled barbed wire and razor wire on the top of the high dark stone walls. They walked me into the main building; it had fortress like doors, and bars blocking every hallway. I noted that little formality was taken as they dragged me through several locked doors and barred gates till we descended deep into the lower levels of this prison.
The whole time they were dragging me through the halls of this place I protested; "I'm Canadian! I am Canadian! …Where are you taking me? What are you doing with me? I want a lawyer! Call the Canadian consulate! You can't do this to me! Don't I get a phone call?" but my cries fell on deaf ears. We made it to what must have been one of the lowest levels of the prison. We walked down a long dimly lit hallway; the light bulb that lit the way flickered, buzzed and dimmed in an annoying rhythm.
We turned a corner and came to an empty cell; they opened the big steel door, pushed me in and slammed the door hard. The deafening clang of the door slamming shut mocked me. I was locked in, my life was no longer my own. My only illumination was a small sliver of flickering light from the fizzling hall lamp that found its way through a space at the top of the heavy steel door. I checked out the cell, there was a steel wire bed frame sans mattress. Lovely. I thought, still able to respond to myself sarcastically.
As I had approached the bed I noticed that there was a puddle of water at least a half inch deep on the cell floor. I stumbled onto the bed and tried the hard steel mesh that was supposed to be my mattress. The cold damp air had access to both sides of my body; there was no real way of curling up to keep warm; a blanket would have been nice. I thought. It would be better to just lie on the floor, if it was not soaked with a smelly, scummy sludge.
I was unsure what their plans were for me, I was sure that I would be finding out soon, but till then I was stuck in this six by eight-foot cell. I guess this is better than being stuck in the toilet of my boat. I laid down on the bunk; pondering my predicament. I recalled how warm and fuzzy I felt that night I found the icebreaker and crawled on and went to sleep. My expectations were so high; I thought all my troubles were over, I was so happy. But how disappointing was the coming of morning. "AUGGGHHF!" I cried in anguish as I tallied my plight.
It seemed like days before anyone came to check on me, I wondered if the right people knew I was even in here. I had been unceremoniously ushered in, no documentation, not even a word as far as I could tell. Maybe the warden or guards or whatever didn't even know I was here? It was a great relief to hear someone coming down the hall. I called out; "Hey!" and at that moment a small opening in the door opened up and they slid in a steel plate with some kind of gruel piled on it.
I don't know what it was, but it smelled bad, tasted worse, had weird crunching shells or something in it, I rejected the meal after one bite and refused to eat it. But the jailer would come each day and check to see if I had eaten it, and when I hadn't, he just left it there. After several days I was too hungry to resist the five-day-old slop. It was obvious that either you ate it or you starved to death, any protests of the food and service would most likely be ignored.
I was glad it was too dark to see what it was. Not long after that I had the runs. This became a recurring pattern, eat, and then get the back door trots so bad that it seemed all the use of eating was lost. A leaky steel pail served as my toilet. About once or twice a month, they would come around with a barrel on a cart, and they would open the small pass way where the meals were handed through. I had to place the bucket on there, the guy would grab it and dump it out and toss it back in. it would usually do a bounce and spin and anything left in it would spatter about the cell.
Sometimes, if I was sleeping when the guy came by, he would just pass me by and I would have to wait till the next time he came to get my bucket emptied. This was the worst; it was an irregular pickup anyway, often one time in a month, so if I missed it, it could be two months.
It was hard to sleep, never knowing what time it was, no light from sun or moon made it this far down here, and that damn flickering hall light never ceased. With nothing else to occupy my days except for the fear of falling asleep and missing the bucket guy and stretching it out for another month made it all the more unbearable. I couldn’t tell if that was a valid fear or not, because my perspective was from such an unfamiliar vantage point.
I had no way of knowing how much time had passed. I heard stories of people being locked up in horrible jails and prisons, stories of them exercising every day, and making the most of there jail cell space. I would try it, but I found that I could not maintain a disciplined regiment, and my motivation was not real, I didn't want to do anything, I just wanted to wait till it was all over. Distraught, I would lie there on that steel wire bed frame and watch the flickering of the light. Eventually I found myself trying to determine if there was a pattern to it. I tried to anticipate and predict when each flicker would exactly occur. This was my only game.
Nobody came for me, I never saw a judge, or even had anyone tell me why I was here; I had not even been accused of anything. I could only assume that the guy who threw me off the ship had died, and that was why I was here. But I had no official confirmation of that; no one had said anything to me at all. I tried to reason why it all went so badly. Why did that sailor want to throw me off the ship? Perhaps he thought I was a stowaway or something, perhaps it was his job to make sure there never were stowaways on the ship; it had to be something like that.
But it seemed it was even more than that, I saw total hate and contempt in his eyes when he was beating me. Maybe he was just some mean bugger who liked beating on people when ever he got the chance that could be why his mates didn't rescue him out of the water, they didn't like him. But they were not any better; they joined in on the beating of me as well. I guess if your best motivation is hate, then you might let your mate's die as easy as you might like to kill.
Whatever it was I couldn't know, I suppose I had to just be thankful that they had saved meat all. All though being locked up in this dungeon like cell was not something I wanted to feel thankful for. My wits were at their end. I found that I feared things that I had previously not feared. For some reason death seemed to scare me now, as worthless as my life quality had become, I now feared death more than ever. It had to be some form of madness that was overcoming me.
I had lost the ability to determine what was important, what were my priorities? It seemed I could not determine them while I was ruled by fear. My biggest fear besides death was that I would miss the honey bucket guy. After that was my food, afraid that my food would not come that they would forget about me and stop feeding me. I was also afraid that the food was bad and it would kill me or make me real sick. Then I was afraid the fear would poison me, "You have nothing to fear, but fear it self" I think Teddy Roosevelt said that, but to me, in here, it was just one more thing to fear.
I knew that I had to pull it together, but my will to do it just wasn't there. It was easy to fear; to let my mind slip to where my madness became my only friend. I had to resign myself to the fact that I had killed the guy. He had drowned and that it was my fault, it was as if by my hand, if I had not resisted him, if I had just let go of his jacket, he would not have died. I have had nightmares about this day, when I was just a boy I would wake up in the terror that I had just killed someone. I would pray that I would never have to kill someone, it terrified me so.
But now it was so, and I had to live with it. To cope, I would daydream about how it all could have been different, a pleasant fantasy. I would imagine that I slept soundly on that icebreaker, and a young sailor that alerted the captain and the ship’s doctor found me. They tended to my wounds and fed me food and drink. The captain arranged for my safe return home, and from that day forward I would be sending the whole crew of that ship my thanks with Christmas cards every year.
Then, once home, maybe I would write a book about my ordeal. I would live my life different, every day borrowed time, and I would forever be in the day’s debt. Maybe my sea bug would be gone, maybe I would become a landlubber, but I doubt that. A farm might be nice; I think I might like that; some chickens, cows, maybe a horse or two…and rabbits! It would have to have a river or a large creek running through it. But now, I am just stuck here in this cell, rotting away.

The flickering of the damn light is driving me deeper into utter madness. I have long since tired of the game of trying to predict its patterns. My fears have now even left me, and so I am even more alone than ever. From time to time I could hear them taking other prisoners out of their cells. I could hear there screams echo down the stone hallways as they were tortured. I was so lonely I was jealous of them. I was so desperate for human contact that I hoped they would come for me. But they never came; I was insignificant.
There is no worse torture to your ego than to be slighted as insignificant. There was no conspiracy against me; my presence was no threat to anyone. There was nothing I might know that they cared to ask me about, let alone torture me for it. I guess my body was thankful, but my ego was destroyed, I meant nothing to anyone here. I wondered why they even bothered to feed me, but I was terrified that they would not. Months dragged into years and not a word was asked of me.
When the guards would come with food or to take my honey bucket of crap I tried to get them to talk to me, to say anything, but they rarely acknowledged me. Month dragged on into years, my hair was so long and filthy it was matted into a clumped mat and became my pillow. Sometimes it would get caught in the wire frames of my bed and yank me back as I tried to get up. I found I had to stand as much as possible, if I laid down more than I had to, the wire frames of the bed would wear through my skin and festered badly.
I had no way of knowing how much time was passing, I suspected that I was on a four day week, that is to say that my meals came about one and three-quarter days apart. The food was an acquired taste to say the least. It was less like gruel and more like pig slop. It would contain rotten apple cores on a good day. But usually it was a soggy soft old potato, some fish heads, and what I think was cabbage. Some kind of meat or dog food mixed in with some other fishy tasting stuff, but I don’t know what kind of fish or what part of a fish it might be. Sometimes I would get a banana peel or orange peels. But one time I got some crab meet or lobster, it was cold, perhaps even uncooked, but it was the highlight of my life in here. I chewed on the shells for hours after all the tasty meat was devoured. I ground the shells down to mush with what was left of my rotting teeth.
To escape the flickering of that bulb I would lay face down on the cold damp floor. This was the only way to escape it, if I laid face down on my bed I could see right through the wire frame and the light would reflect off the floor under my bed. I would lie there for hours, maybe days, how could I know? My head cradled in my arms as they blocked all light from all sides. I would stare at the floor with my eyes open this seemed to help. For some reason I needed to be able to keep my eyes open and not see that aggravating flicker.
One time, while laying on the floor I spotted the head of a nail sticking out that was holding my bed frame to the cell wall. I wiggled and pulled on it. It had been driven into the concrete mortar pretty deep, but I was able to get my fingers on it. I had nothing else to do, so I made a project of it. Over the next long while I worked at trying to get that nail loose. I found this to be very therapeutic, time seemed to fly by, and my meals seemed to come closer together. I would fall asleep planning how I was going to try to get that nail out when I woke up.
Then one day, shortly after I had woken up, I was able to pull that nail out. Perhaps this means I am to become the king! I thought, referencing King Arthur or Sir Lancelot or something like that, one of those old stories. The thought made me laugh, I laughed out loud. This surprised me; I thought I had forgotten how. I didn't know how funny it really was, I mean I didn't have an audience. I kind of thought it was funny, but with out a live audience, I might just be like one of those radio DJ's that think they’re really funny but are not.
I held onto that nail, rubbed it, and polished it with the grime on my hands. I was not sure what to do with it, but it was mine, and I was going to take good care of it. At some point I made a scratch in the mortar that covered the wall of my cell. I knew that I would never be able to dig my way out of here with the nail, but I could start a calendar. I had no way of knowing when the days came or went, but I could count my meals, and I could record how many meals between bucket changes. Perhaps, I could find a consistent pattern and be able to predict their arrival. This would relieve me of the anxiety of missing the honey bucket dump.
This new activity did much for my moral. Every time I got a meal I would make a mark on the wall to log it. I also found the nail useful as an eating utensil, it was my fork, but it wasn't actually forked. I found that I would get sixteen meals between the honey bucket guys arrival. But I had no idea how far apart the meals were coming. I had to know how far apart the meals were coming if I wanted to know how long I was in here.
I decided to count steam boats between meals, I would count one steamboat, two steamboats, and so on, in a steady rhythm. This would be like the second hand on a clock. I would divide the total by sixty, to convert it into minutes, then into sixty again, to divide it into hours, then by twenty-four to get the number of days. I suspected strongly that the meals were nearly two days apart. I needed to find out for sure.
I tried several times to count steady through between meals, but I would lose my place, or fall asleep. Nevertheless, I kept trying; it was once again great to have something to do. I barely noticed the flickering light any more. I always wondered: What kind of bulb is that? I would have thought it would have burned out long ago! I could count to five hundred okay, but found that I kept losing track after that, so took my nail and made a mark on the wall each time I reached five hundred and I would start from one again. Then when I was done, I would count the number of marks on the wall and multiply them by five hundred to get the total.
It took more discipline that I had readily available to keep up a steady regiment of counting, but after many days and attempts I found I had gotten to a hundred marks on the wall without messing up. That was one hundred five hundreds; I was in too deep now to throw that away. I fought sleep all the while, I couldn’t let myself fall asleep and lose all that work to nothing. I think I drifted off for a minute once, but I was unsure, I had to push on anyway, I had to hope that my count would be close enough.
I then heard the sound of the guard at my cell door; it was mealtime. I was at two hundred and twenty eight of a five hundred count. I quickly counted up all the marks of the wall. There were one hundred and eighty seven five hundreds marked. As I ate my food I tried to calculate how much that was. I scratched out the math formula on the wall. They added up to ninety-three thousand and five hundred, plus the two hundred and twenty eight made ninety three thousand seven hundred and twenty eight steamboats.
It would take me longer to divide them into minutes and then hours and then days. I decided I would not use the nail to scratch out the formula on the wall. I wanted to do it in my head, because I needed something to do.
Over the next few days I carefully calculated all the numbers in my head. Double-checking each step many times, but never writing one thing down. This exercise seemed to make me feel very satisfied, which was odd, since I usually did not care for doing math. It worked out to about twenty-six hours. I guess time is passing a lot slower in here than I though it was. I couldn't decide if this was good or bad. It meant that I was in here half as long as I thought I was, but it also meant I had twice as long more to stay in here. I couldn’t tell if that made sense or not.
I decided that they were coming once a day, and that the extra couple of hours were just inaccurate counting or they just didn't show up at the exact time each day, I would have an accurate enough calendar. But I had no way of knowing what month, season, or year it actually was. The exercise of working all that out was great entertainment and stimulation for my brain. For the first time in a long time I felt good; actually looking forward to each waking moment.
I realized that I had to keep my mind active; I had to expand my mind. I recalled when I was young my dad needed help to get the last few issues of typesetting copy out, and he was too sick to do it. He asked for my help, I sat at the keyboard of the giant linotype machine and tried to memorize the keyboard. I copied the key layout onto a piece of paper and studied it. I brought to bed with me that night and visualized myself typesetting copy. From time to time I would refer to my key board drawing to help find the right key placements
The keyboard on a linotype is nothing like a typewriter; it has several times many more keys. There are no shift keys; the caps are on one part, the small letters on another part, the numbers, symbols and punctuation on another part. By morning I went and sat down at the linotype and began typing out the copy. My dad came to see how I was doing and was amazed at the speed I was typing. He picked up a hot lead slug and read the impressions on it, there was no mistakes.
He said he had never seen anyone learn the machine so fast, I was typing like I had been doing it for years, well, for weeks or months anyway, and this was my first day. I worked long hours for several days and I got the entire issue done. We loaded it into the trunk of the Cadillac and I, at fourteen years of age, drove to downtown Toronto and delivered the type to the printer. That was the last issue we ever did, my dad died a few months later.
Ever since then I found that visualizing something was as good as or even better than actually practicing or doing something. I decided that I could live within my imagination; my reality need not be the confines of these cold dark walls. I could let my mind explore the world, and experience anything I wanted. I had feared that this might lead to a total loss of any sense of reality, but, now I recognized that the answer to that was; "Who cares!" and so, I embraced it.
I had not even been allowing myself to remember my previous life, as is what I know called the days when I could see the sky. Now I wondered what was new, what things were going on, who was still alive, and who had died. I knew nothing of the outside world anymore. I had not even allowed myself to consider those things since I had been in here, till now. I decided that I could allow myself to reminisce, to try to recall the life I once had, to relive it like I had while I was trapped in the head of my sinking boat.
I miss that boat; it would have been a great life if I had of made it to Vancouver Island. But I was not going to stay there, I was going to sail south, then through the Panama Canal and up to Louisiana, up the Mississippi to Lake Pontchartrain and across it to Madisonville, that’s where I would go. I would dock it on the canal that cuts through Madisonville and live right there. Living on the hook is what they call that, dropping anchor, no rent no property taxes, nothin, just pure freedom. I would finally be back on the right side of the dock.
I had stood on the wrong side of the dock for too long but there seemed little I could do about it; I had to face it, I was land locked. I would walk the boardwalk in Madisonville, looking at the people enjoying the day on their boats. Sunset comes and the cabin lights come on, dragonflies buzz the decks in the half-light of the late dinner hour. There was definite class distinction, divided by what side of the dock you were on, if you were standing on land, or floating on the water defined it.
I use to be on their side of the dock. I had wanted back in the worst way. That was why I bought back The Lady Susan, it was the fulfillment of my dream to back get across that dock. I imagined myself sitting on a lawn chair stretched out under the awning of the rear deck, basking in the hot endless Louisiana summer. Across the lake lies New Orleans, The big easy, if you can't make it there, you can't make it anywhere. I would spend my time working on my southern drawl, and perhaps a few margaritas.
I might still miss Lake Simcoe though; I would always have a place in my heart for that Lake. Perhaps it was because it was the first lake I ever knew, or perhaps it was the best lake I ever knew; I was too biased to know. I remember taking the Lady Susan out on that lake with my Brother in law Tom Pitcin, it was the summer after the spring that my dad and my sister Nancy, Tom's wife had died. A big summer storm was blowing in, so I asked Tom if he wanted to head out on the lake with the Lady Susan.
Tom didn't know any better so he said "Sure" and so we headed off to the lake. The sky grew dark and the wind began to blow. By the time we got to the end of the canal towards the lake the storm was at full force. The man at the swing bridge refused to open the bridge for us; he did not want us heading out into such a storm. We crept up to the bridge and found we were about eight inches too high. I lifted the hatch and reached down along side the engine, I grabbed the handle to the hose bib valve that was meant to drain the lake water from the engine block for winter storage.
I opened the valve, and with the engine running the water pump for cooling the engine would draw water from under the boat and pump it right out the spigot. I revved the engine up and watched the water spray into the bilge. Before long water could be seen coming up through the floorboards of the galley. I checked our water line; we had sunk at least a foot, so we slowly motored under the bridge. The fellow that manned the swing bridge came out of his shack to shake his head at what we had done.
We had to sit behind the breakwater while we pumped the water out of the bilge. After about a half an hour we were ready to hit the waves. The storm was blowing so hard by this time that some of the waves were breaking right over the breakwater. As we left the harbor the wind was so strong that I had to gun the engines to full power to keep us from being blown into the rip rap of the breakwater. I steered her into the direction of the storm, taking the storm head on.
The waves were huge, the largest I had ever seen. Each wave towered over the cabin of the cruiser, and we road up to the top of waves that seemed to be at least three stories high. I set a course and told Tom to hold her steady. Reluctantly, he took the wheel. I climbed up on to the front deck, straddled the bow with both my legs, and hung on as tight as I could.
The boat raised high on top of a wave, and then just as quickly fell off that wave; I would loose my stomach as we fell all the way into the trough of the wave. Then, the following wave would crash over us, and if I had not had such a good grip on my hold, I would have been washed over board. Many tons of water flooded over me, knocking back and straining me against my handholds. I had to hold my breath for several moments before the water finally began receding and the bow of the boat bounced up out of the water and rode the next wave high in to the sky again.
Hanging onto that deck for dear life was like being on top of the world, better than any carnival ride I had ever been on or even seen. Again the boat would free fall off the crest of the wave into the trough far below. The thirty plus foot cabin cruiser was tossed about like a rubber ducky in a toddlers bathtub. One time she laid over onto her side and slid down the wave and wallowed at the bottom till the crest of the next wave broke on top of us, nearly rolling us over. It was hard to hold on, the force of the water was tremendous, and I was being submerged for so long I could hardly hold my breath long enough.
I looked back to see how Tom was doing; he was standing statue like at the wheel, frozen in terror, white as a bed sheet. I realized that I better get inside and help. Either Tom was over reacting and things were not that bad, or I just wasn't taking it all seriously enough. On a good bounce up out of the water, I sprang to my feet, ran up and over the falling decks and cabin roof, and dived into the well at the stern of the boat. Holding on tight I watched the whole forward section of the boat be consumed by a foaming froth of white water and disappear under the wave until the boats own buoyancy bobbed her up onto the next rising wave.
I entered the cabin and everything was soaked, Tom was as wet as I was. We dove into another trough; water consumed the forward deck, the weight of it rolling the boat onto her side, tossing me about the cabin. Water was spraying in from every loose seam in the window pains and spraying like a fire hose through an open porthole over the lower deck bunks. I made my way towards the wheel, holding onto what I could to steady myself as the boat tossed about.
I throttled back the engine to smooth the ride out, now we were rising and falling in synch with the waves, no more uncontrolled plunges into the belly of the beast. I steered us for the lea of Thora Island. In the shelter of the island I made a turn and set a course back for the Trent Canal. We ran in the lea of the island until our course took us back into the path of the full force of the storm. I had to be Johnny on the spot with the throttle to keep the waves from breaking over our vulnerable stern and swamping us.
We reached the canal breakwater and I had to use full power to keep us off the riprap once again. This is the most dangerous part in my mind, if that engine should quit we would be smashed to pieces against the breakwater, how embarrassing. I imagined the rest of my life having to explain to everyone "The engine quit! It's not my fault!" This time the bridge master wasted no time opening the bridge for us, but he still had to come out and greet us with another head wagging.
I don't know how Tom took it, but I enjoyed the experience immensely. That summer Tom spent a lot of time up at the cottage. We would boat all over the lake; the Lady Susan was used more that year than it had been in all the previous years that we had it. Tom loved that boat as much as my dad ever had. I always thought it a shame that my mom sold it, or at least tried to sell it, she never ever got paid for it. It would have been so great to just give it to Tom, change the name to the Nancy MM. The name of my sister; Toms wife who had died, it was also the name of one of my dads first boats.
One day I was being a little extra mischievous. Usually I obeyed most of all the boating laws, where it counted. I mean I was never reckless around other boats, unless I knew them. I was always mindful of my wake, careful to slow down past marinas and moored boats or small water craft. But one day, it all started normal enough, I turned onto the canal at high speed, no one was around, I did that all the time. But about a quarter mile down the canal I saw an OPP cutter rise up out of the water as her engines were throttled up.
I turned tail to run, by the time I got slowed down enough and made the turn about in the canal they were pretty close. I knew that if I turned for home I was as good as caught, all they had to do was wait for me, and I had to come out some time. I turned to starboard onto the Talbot River, away from the direction home. I kept her pinned down hard, letting the engine over rev all it wanted. I had set up the propeller and drive leg angle perfectly, after years of it being totally wrong; it now was free and fast.
I carved the tight turns of the river hard; the G-forces making steering difficult as I had to hang onto the steering wheel so tight just to keep from being tossed out over the side. The nine-inch skid fin I had put on the bottom of this thing hooked it up like a roller coaster. I rounded the last turn and there was the Trent Talbot Marina. Normally I would slow down and putt by, but this time I was wide open.
I made it past the marina to the train trestle that crosses the river. The posts were no more than six or seven feet apart but I squeezed through them easy enough. I looked back to see the OPP cutter making a panic stop to keep from getting wedged between the pillars. I continued at full speed past all the cottages and under the low fixed road bridge, ducking low and looking back at my engine hoping it would fit under as well. Then I headed out onto the open lake.
A while later I was cruising around out on the lake feeling pretty smug about my earlier escape. Then in my peripheral vision; I caught a glimpse of a boat sneaking up on me on a collision course. I perceived it was that OPP cutter cutting off the angle to intercept me. I turned away and made for open water. They matched me move for move, continually cutting off my angle as I tried to make for the canal or the mouth of the river. They were forcing me farther and farther out on the lake. They were probably planning to run me out of fuel.
I made to the south and to the west, if worst came to worst I would hide in around Georgina Island. Then I saw that I had successfully put a long sand bar between them and my route back to the river. I turned for the river, giving her back full throttle, as fast as she would run I let her go. They adjusted their course to cut off my angle, and they would have caught me too, had it not been for that hidden sand bar.
They must have had a depth finder or knew about the sand bar, because they turned just in time to avoid it. Now, running parallel to me about five hundred yards off my stern, it was a drag race. I still had to arc towards the river entrance; but they had a straight line to run. It was going to be close. They turned on their light and siren. But there was no good place to pull over. When we got to the mouth of the river we were side by side.
To intimidate me they crowded right up beside me as if they were going to ram me or jump in or grapple me or something. But I jerked the wheel away and that skid fin dug in and I was thirty feet from them in less than a blink of an eye. We were closing in on the low road bridge at the entrance to the Talbot. I turned my attention from my pursuers and focused on my exit. Side by side we ran but out of the corner of my eye I saw there hull drop and there bow sink into the surface of the water. They had to stop; they couldn't fit under the bridge. However, I could, and zoom! I was out o' there!
I laid low for a few hours, before I took the boat out for another ride. I never saw the OPP cutter; they must have packed up and gone home. I was putting past the marina, and the marina owner was waving me over. Well I got to get gas some time! I reasoned. I may as well take my lumps now! I was sure I was going to hear what for about buzzing his marina a couple times that day. I approached the dock where the fuel pumps are. The marina owner had some Abercrombie like city slicker with him.
"This man ran his boat up on the rocks…" the marina owner began. I was sure that the next words out of his mouth were going to be about how I had some how ran him up on the rocks. I had been speeding around all day, being chased by the cops; it was possible I never even saw him. This guy looked pretty high strung; he could have seen me go by a hundred yards away and just freaked out
"…Yeah it nearly killed my whole family…" interrupted the city slicker. It was getting worse by the minute, I was sure they were going to pin this on me. I racked my memory trying to think if I had a close call with anybody but I couldn't think of anything, still, perhaps I never even saw him.
"I was no where near there today…" I responded spontaneously, realizing after I had said it that they had never actually said where this had occurred. "I mean I never saw anything, whereabouts’ did this all happen?" I asked. Good recovery. I thought.
"Over by the rocks!" the city slicker exclaimed.
"How did it happen? Did someone cut you off into the rocks?" I asked, probing.
"No no nothing like that…. Boats are dangerous…. We had an accident!" I was greatly relieved.
"He needs to get it off the rocks before it becomes a navigational hazard." The marina owner interjected.
"Yeah, if you can get my boat off the rocks you can have it!" Sounded too good to be true. But we already had enough old boats and junk, I really didn't want another.
"How bad is it?" I asked.
"It’s all smashed to bits! The motor leg is all smashed it’s all ruined!" It didn't sound too good, I was not sure what kind of mess I would have to clean up, but I told him I would go take a look at her and see if I wanted it or not. I sped off in the direction he told me to go I found it at the side of the canal, it had a new forty horse Johnson motor on it and there was barely a nick on the leg or prop. The boat was a sixteen-foot Peterborough cedar strip boat, there was about a ten-inch square hole punched through the hull below the water line.
I quickly sped back to the marina; I circled the boat to turn it around in front of the dock. "I'll take it!" I shouted. The man gave an overhead wave as he turned and walked away from the dock toward his car. I sped back to the boat. I slung the motor off to one side to tilt the hole out of the water, tied a rope to her bow and tugged her off the rocks and towed her home.
When I arrived back at the cottage, Tom and my brother Dan were standing on the river back watching me approach. "Look what I got!" I shouted excitedly.
"Where did you get this from?" Dan asked. So I told him the story, but not the whole story, I left out the part about the OPP chasing me and stuff. Tom wanted it right away, and offered me two hundred and eighty dollars for it. I had not even considered selling it yet, but I could see Tom really wanted it. I knew he needed things to fill his life with, since losing Nancy he was so alone. So I agreed and sold it to him on the spot.
Later that summer Tom and I would take that cedar strip boat out into another one of those summer storms that Lake Simcoe is so famous for. The patch we had put over the hole broke loose, and we had a hundred square inch hole open to the lake below the water line. We were way out by Thora Island, and the waves were nearly ten feet high. Lightening was striking the water all around us. That was what scared me the most, the hole I could do something about, but the lightening was beyond my control.
Water was gushing in through the hole. I tapped Tom on the Shoulder to point out the problem. He looked up at me with a worried look. "It's ok! Grab a lifejacket!" I shouted over the wind and engine. I grabbed the life jacket off him before he could get it on. "No!" I shouted again, and put the lifejacket over the hole to slow the water flow. "Stand on the other side of the boat to tip the hole out of the water, and put one foot on the jacket to hold it there! I'll go to the far back corner to tip us up some more and man the bailing bucket! You steer us for home!"
At that Tom did what I said and saw that we were probably going to make it. We got home and did an even better patch over the hole. Tom and that boat were inseparable; often on a clear night he would arrive at the cottage and head out on the lake all by himself just to watch the stars. It was the first summer we had without Nancy, and it was the last summer I had with Tom, I never saw him again.