Friday 12 Noon

Ronnie is arriving tomorrow. He’s moving onto the boat I sold him. The boat I’ve been squatting on for the past five months. He’ll be living on Scruffy. Which means I wont be living on Scruffy.

I’ll be Van Life’n.

It’s not like I didn’t know this day was coming. I figured I could squat on the boat till Spring. How was I supposed to know Ronnie would actually get his shit together? I figured he was my Pigeon. Turns out Ronnie’s his own man after all.

He called me yesterday. I picked up on the first ring. I’m not hiding from the dude. I always answer with “Hey Ronnie! How you doing!” Like I’m overwhelmed he’s calling me. Don’t ask me why. Maybe it’s just that I like Ronnie. He’s like a son to me.

“Could you do me a favor?” He asks.

“Name it.”

“Could you like do that thing you do with the leaks.”

“What thing?”

“You know, tape little bags and cups under the leaks to catch the water and shit…”

“Little bags and cups?”

“You know, whatever it is you do to stop the leaks.”

“Oh, yeah. The way I had it before you showed up that one weekend and removed all the leak bags.”

“Yeah, I know. I’m thinking I should’ve left them up. At least until I get around to sealing everything up properly.”

“You mean like the leak that drips on your forehead while you’re sleeping.”

“That one for sure.”

“And the one that drips in the v-birth. Right about where your head’ll be if you happen to be sleeping in there?”

“Oh, yeah. That one too.”

“And definitely the one that drips onto to your lap while you’re taking a shit.”

“Oh, yeah? I didn’t know about that one.”

“Not a problem, Ronnie. I’ll tape up the leak catchers before the rain starts…”

[I did already. Soon as I got the confirmation from Weather.com.]

“Wow, thanks!”

“I guess you know it’s gonna rain like hell thru Tuesday.”

“I know. We get the same weather reports as you do.”

“You still coming up?”

“Oh, yeah. I’ll be there Saturday afternoon.”

Ronnie’s a man of his word. He’ll be here Saturday.

Saturday night I’ll be camping in my van. No wait a minute. Saturday night I’ll be at Joan’s pad. Sunday night I’ll be camping in my van.

A brief reprieve

This is my old boat. The Yardbird. You can read about my old boat by clicking the link and ordering my novel. The novel is fiction but the parts about my old boat are mostly true. Anyway, I sold my old boat to Karen, a Traveling Nurse. She stays on the boat weekends. Often she’s gone for extended periods back East. The bottom line, she’s not around much.

I ran into her last week and we worked out a deal. I’ll pay her half her slip fee and stay aboard my old boat week days when she’s gone. We don’t even need to bump into each other. I’m thinking this is good. I don’t need to Van Life after all. What’s more, my old boat shares C dock with Scruffy. So it’s like I’m not even leaving the neighborhood.

I told her, “Don’t worry. I’m not bringing any of my shit onto the Yardbird. It’ll be just me and a sleeping bag. You won’t even know I’m there. I’ll be gone before you show up.”

“Fine,” she says. “I’ll text you my schedule for February.”

“Good. I’ll get you some cash.”

She’s got a mortgage on a house back home in Michigan. She’s putting three kids through college. Every little bit helps. Turns out she’ll be traveling well into March. Chances are I’ll have another boat by then. In fact I’m sure I will!

Then yesterday she calls me. “I’m rethinking your deal,” she says.

“Rethinking?”

“The V-berths full of my cloths. I’m not moving my stuff around for a lousy three hundred bucks. Sorry…”

“How about 325?”

“Boy, are you cheap. Forget about it. Buy yourself a tent.”

I am cheap. But I don’t need a tent. I got a van.

Got a bed in there. Got window covers. Got a nice heater. Blows real hot! Got a ice chest for broccoli and carrots and salami. Got a little storage.

Got a car for more storage.

Shit. Things could be a whole lot worse.

So I’m set for van life’n.

I don’t need no friggin tent…

Last night I had a dream

My boyhood pal.

Last night I had a dream. Rodger my pal from high school days appears in my dream. I’m sitting behind the wheel of my van. I’m parked at the Marina parking lot. Staring out at the rain. Rodger climbs in next to me and sez, “Hey Shins, how you doing?”

I’m looking at him like it’s no big deal he looks exactly like he did back in 1972. That summer we flipped his Volkswagen bug on sunset boulevard. “So what’re we gonna do, Rodger?” I ask him.

“We gotta drive,” he says.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah…the cops’ll be here soon.”

“You think they’ll show up in the rain?”

“Of course.”

“What did I do?”

“Never mind that now. We gotta roll.”

So we’re driving through the rain but Rodger sez he needs to see this chick he knows lives over on Valley drive. I should drop him off there.

“What’ll I do?” I ask.

“Don’t worry about it, Shins…you can camp in your van.”

“In the rain?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I camped in a tent in the rain. Try doing that.”

We drive for a while. Rodger has me pull over behind a gas station.

“What are we doing here?”

“I’ll be right back,” he says, getting out.

“Where are you going?”

“I gotta see a guy about a mule. You drive around the block and I’ll be done by the time you get back.”

“What block?”

“Just pick one.”

So I pull across the street and start down a side street and this street goes on forever. There’s no cross streets. Just one long ass street with houses and tiny front yards and a bus stop with people holding umbrellas, and I’m just driving and driving and driving until it occurs to me to wake up. I’m laying there, wide-eyed, thinking of my old buddy Rodger, who’s dead, who’s been dead, I don’t know, since last January, and I’m thinking, well, in a couple days I’ll be Van Life’n. But at least I won’t be in a tent. In the rain…

You gotta hang with the silver linings!