10 Things A Boat Bum Does With His Time
Let me think.
Does he go sailing? Rarely.
Does he work on his boat? God forbid.
What does he do all day?
Number One……I read a little Poetry
I’m reading this Haiku by Matsuo Basho.. The Ancient Pond. It’s supposed to be among the greatest Haiku’s ever written. I’m taking my time reading it. Make sure I absorb it thoroughly. I’m in no rush…
The Ancient Pond
Matsuo Bashō
An Ancient Pond...
A frog jumps in
The splash of water.
1688
I’m impressed by this poem. I’m so impressed, I think I’ll write a poem, too!
The old fart fish
Shit’s happening all the time
Out in the world.
Not here.
Here in a oak-shaded pond
I’m happy.
I swim around. Eat bugs. Water moss.
Now and then another old fish swims by slow and easy.
We’re the predators of this pond.
We eat bugs. Once in a while I snag a tadpole.
A while back I watched the other old Fish snag a frog and struggle like hell to swallow the poor bastard.
Best to stick with the tadpoles.
If a gator splashes in we got trouble…
The Gloomy Boomer…2025
It’s a little long.
I’m no Basho, that’s for sure. Well, my moto is:
Don’t try and be the best in Town. Be the Best. Until the best comes around.
(Actually, that’s a Buddy Guy song…)
Number Two….I take vacations
Last winter I sold Scruffy and moved off C dock. Lived in my van for a month or so. I don’t remember exactly how long. A dark period. Not quite as dark as the Dark Ages. But close…
My pal Rel Render gave me the idea of Van Life’n. Sent me a you tube video. Jacked me up on the idea. Live rent free! He knew the idea of living on nothing would hook me. And it did. For a while there I was living on nothing with a free toilet tossed in for measure…
I guess you can’t beat that. I mean, that’s as close to free as you can get without being dead.
I’d get up at four am just to use the free toilet. It never closed! I only ever once saw anybody in there. Maybe cuz it was four am…Once a Mexican went in to pee and wash his hands. On his way to work no doubt. Another time Del, the city worker, confronted me while I was taking a pee. He was polite. “Officer Del of the City of Sausalito,” he announced from outside the door. I stepped out the door and confronted him. “What can I do for you?” I asked. He looked a little surprised, seeing I’m an Old Fart of a certain stature. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m keeping a look-out for a person who’s been defacing the public buildings.”
“You mean a Tagger?”
“Exactly. They call themselves Graffiti artists. This ones been operating around here and if I catch him you can bet your bottom dollar he’ll go to jail. If I have anything to do with it.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open.”
He gave me his card. I lost his card. I haven’t seen him since I moved back onto C Dock. As for the Graffiti Artist? Maybe this is the guy.
You meet all kinds, slinging free booze…
Number Three….I contemplate my longevity
My vacation was nice but not terribly eventful. I’m officially back. Living on my old Dock. I was gone for a short interval but now I’m back. Over all I’ve been here a long-ass time. Once, a while back, my Harbor Master, a real decent fellow I supply with free booze, commented on my residency. “Gee, Gloomy. You’ve been here a long ass time. How long you been here?”
“I don’t know, ten years maybe.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Maybe twelve years…”
“That’s a real long time.”
“What about Webster here?” I said, indicating the Ericson 27, docked beside me. “He’s been here a long ass time, too.”
“He’s been here forever.”
Number four….I stare at the boats on C Dock
C dock has seen some changes since I was van-life’n. We got a duffy fleet…taking up all the empty slips.
These little lectric skiffs ferry rubes around for a day on the waterfront. Maybe not a whole day. That would run you a thousand bucks, easy. More even!
These days lots of landlubbers show up on my dock. Mainly weekends. But still. I used to live on a deserted dock. I liked it. Now I gotta deal with these rubes.
They even got this atrocious phony paddle boat. Five hundred a head. Something like that. They park this friggin thing right beside Ronnie. He aint happy about it.
“I don’t like that thing,” he says.
“You don’t?”
“It blocks my view.”
“Yeah…and you got all these strangers showing up on the dock.”
“Showing up like they’re visiting Disneyland.”
“Tourists.”
“Landlubbers,” he says.
Ronnie was a Landlubber until recently. Now he’s living on Scruffy. He’s a genuine Boat Bum now.
Can’t you tell?
Number five…I inspect the ghost Boat
Ryan’s Boat. Poor Dude got cancer and left town. Left all his stuff behind. Boat’s been sitting empty two or three years. A ghost boat. Any day now the Harbor Master means to tow it to the crusher. One of these days. Harbor Master has a timeline. A negotiable timeline, apparently…
Left a lot of stuff behind. That fridge is like new. I might snag it. The little Christmas tree? I don’t need the Christmas tree. Well, so much for the routine tragedies of life.
There’s plenty of those to go around…
Number Six….I monitor the old dude
Every morning the old dude rows his dingy past my stern. He docks his dingy at the foot of C dock. Hobbles up the ramp and across the field and down the road to Molly Stone’s where he catches a bus to San Rafael. He’s as regular as the tides. If I’m around I usually give him a lift to the bus stop. I mean, what the fuck. I gotta put at least one good deed on my score card. The old dude is 85 years old. He’s one of seven Anchor Outs left on Richardson Bay. Used to be more than 200. Well, an era is passing. So much for Bleeding Hearts. All I know is, I’m still around and the old dude is, too.
We keep on chooglin as the song goes.
Number Seven….I look back on former tenants
The old lady. Mary. Lived on the beat up Carver across from me. Lived on it forever. Then one day she was gone. Evicted. Evicted for being too old to live on a boat. Well, she could barely get around. She was a accident waiting to happen. A trip and fall over the side. A bit of a struggle and a date with Davy Jones. Now she’s in an apartment somewhere in San Rafael. Last I heard she complained about the apartment. Wanted to be back on her boat. A true-blue boat bum if there ever was one. Do I miss her? Do I sound like a bleeding heart?
Finally they took her boat to the crusher.
Now the slip is empty again.
Awaiting a new tenent.
Wait a minute…the slip aint empty.
The slip has a new tenent.
Me!
I’m the new tenant.
I’m in slip number 91.
Old Mary’s former slip.
The Harbor Master rented me Mary’s former slip?
Is this an Omen I’m dealing with here?
One day I’ll be a former tenant, too. Just like Old Mary.
I’m thinking of Ryan’s Ghost boat.
Maybe let’s not think about the Ghost boat…
Number eight…I play some Muddy Waters
I didn’t make it to ten.
What the hell am I doing anyway, making lists?
There’s nothing you gotta remember.
Lists are for Achievers.
Bleeding Hearts.
Boat Bums don’t need no lists…
4 thoughts on “10 Things A Boat Bum Does With His Time”
Good one gloomy…keep on chooglin!
Thanks Richard!
Mark strand, my mentor at Columbia and american Poet Laureate told me he would quit wrkting poetry had he been able to write the Bones of Chuant Tzu.
The Bones of Chuang Tzu
I, Chan g P’ing-Tzu, had traversed the Nine Wilds and seen
Their wonders,
In the eight continents beheld the ways of Man,
The Sun’s procession, the orbit of the Stars,
The surging of the dragon, the soaring of the phoenix
In his flight.
In the red desert to the south I sweltered,
And northward waded through the wintry burghs of Yu.
Through the Valley of Darkness to the west I wandered,
And eastward travelled to the Sun’s extreme abode,
The stooping Mulberry Tree.
So the seasons sped; weak autumn languished,
A small wind woke the cold.
And now with rearing of rein-horse,
Plunging of the tracer, round I fetched
My high-roofed chariot to westward.
Along the dykes we loitered, past many meadows,
And far away among the dunes and hills.
Suddenly I looked and by the roadside
I saw a man’s bones lying in the squelchy earth,
Black rime-frost over him; and I in sorrow spoke
And asked him, saying, “Dead man, how was it?
Fled you with your friend from famine and for the last grains
2
Gambled and lost? Was this earth your tomb
Or did floods carry you from far? Were you mighty, were you wise,
Were you foolish and poor? A warrior, or a girl?”
Then a wonder came; for out of the silence a voice –
Thin echo only, in no substance was the Spirit seen –
Mysteriously answered, saying, “I was a man of Sung,
Of the clan of Chuang; Chou was my name.
Beyond the climes of common thought
My reason soared, yet could I not save myself:
For at the last,,when the long charter of my years was told,
I, too, for all my magic, by Age was brought
To the black Hill of Death.
Wherefore, O Master, do you question me?”
Then I answered:
“Let me plead for you upon the Five Hill-tops,
Let me pray for you to the Gods of Heaven and the Gods
Of Earth that your white bones may arise,
And your limbs be joined anew.
The God of the North shall give me back your ears;
I will scour the Southland for your eyes.
From the sunrise I will wrest your feet;
The West shall yield your heart.
I will set each severed organ in its throne;
Each subtle sense will I restore,
Would you not have it so?”
3
The dead man answered me:
“O friend, how strange and unacceptable your words!
In death I rest and am at peace; in life, I toiled and strove.
Is the hardness of the winter stream
Better than the melting of spring?
All pride that the body knew
Was it not lighter than dust?
What Ch’ao and Hsu despised,
What Po-Ch’eng fled,
Shall I desire, whom death
Already has hidden in the Eternal Way –
Where Li Chu cannot see me,
Nor Tzu Yeh hear me,
Where neither Yao nor Shun can reward me,
Nor the tyrants Chieh and Hsin condemn me,
Leopard nor tiger harm me,
Lance prick me nor sword wound me?
Of the Primal Spirit is my substance; I am a wave
In the river of Darkness and Light.
The Maker of All Things is my Father and Mother.
Heaven is my bed and earth my cushion.
The thunder and lightning are my drum and fan,
The sun and moon my candle and my torch,
The Milky Way my moat, the stars my jewels.,
With Nature my substance is joined;
I have no passion, no desire.
Wash me and I shall be no whiter.
4
Foul me and I shall yet be clean.
I come not, yet am here;
Hasten not, yet am swift.”
The voice stopped, there was silence.
A ghostly light
Faded and expired.
I gazed upon the dead, stared in sorrow and compassion
Then I called upon my servant that was with me
To tie his silken scarf about those bones
And wrap them in a cloak of somber dust,
While I, as offering to the soul of this dead man,
Poured my hot tears upon the margin of the road.
Chang Heng (A.D. 78-13()
Trans. by Arthur Wale
Reminds me strangely of The Ancient Mariner confronting the Wedding Guest in Coleridge’s poem.