.oh my darling clementine.
so i'm at the bar last night– the windowless one attached to the awful chinese restaurant. my favorite bartender is working, with spice-girl pigtails and wicked quips.
i'm sitting with kate, my ex-ex, who i'm finally over. and it's nice to chat as friends and without the din of insecurity and reading-too-much-into-things in my head. the pabst tallboys keep on coming.
the guy sitting two bar stools over flashes us a bright and leering smile: "how're you gals doing tonight?" we're cheerful enough to engage in conversation with the man, whose name i learn later is floyd. he's from atlanta, but his accent is too viscous for a city boy. he luxuriates on every vowel, and stretches out over the word "ya'll" like a cat waking up after an afternoon nap in the sun. i keep my voice cautiously cold and fight the grin induced by three pabst tallboys.
it turns out floyd doesn't hit on either of us. sure, he's a southern gentleman and he whips out a lighter before i even lift a cigarette to my lips. he buys us another round. he makes frequent reference to "his girl" and engages only in sincere and interested conversation.
we talk for over an hour about cats. i show him the picture on my phone of gordon, my gentle oaf of an orange tabby. he tells me about smokey, the stray from his childhood who wandered into his family kitchen on the evening of thanksgiving and went straight into his arms. we talked about the physiology of purring, and the soul behind yellow feline eyes. "spay and neuter!" i bellow dogmatically, waiving my cigarette in his face. "you tell everybody to spay and neuter!"
what strikes me about floyd is the sincerity with which he tells stories. he pauses at length to recall childhood details. "it was cold out. i remember it was cold out when smokey came in because the door was open. the door was open and i could feel the wind blowing in." his eyes focus somewhere inside his head and he waves his arm toward him in a tender gesture of wind.
it didn't occur to me that he could have been fabricating any of these sweet details on the spot. especially not when floyd launches into a tale of tragic loss on a recent fishing trip in alaska. on the ocean in alaska with a crew of fifteen people, it's a significant loss when someone goes overboard. that's what happened one night amid a particularly wicked storm. they shouldn't have even been out at sea, and certainly not above deck. most waves were 40 knots, some 45, occasionally over 50.
apparently, a wave holds all of its power in the body. the crest is the froth and grandeur.
one of the sailors went up on deck to perform some important fisherman task, something that had to be done despite the danger of waves. his name was clementine. and he was one of the most experienced of the bunch.
nobody would have noticed the accident, except that the cook had emerged from below to haul a sack of garbage onto the deck. it happened at the moment the cook poked his neck up: a strong and sudden wave hit the ship. clementine ducked and braced against the rail when the crest enveloped him, but let go once the body rushed over, tipping the boat.
the other 14 men searched for 12 hours. it only takes five minutes to die in a cold alaska ocean. a miracle could sustain you for another hour. the hours two to twelve were spent merely searching for a body, a shoe, a token to take back to clementine's family. he was lost and gone forever, oh my darling clementine.
i recall thinking that clementine was not a very manly name for a burly fisherman, but i was enthralled in the emotion and high drama of the story and didn't pause to consider the coincidence of clementine's story's similarity to the folk song.
and it makes me wonder if floyd is less a gem of genuine emotion and more a skilled storyteller.
Drove she ducklings to the water
Ev'ry morning just at nine,
Stubbed her toe against a splinter,
Fell into the foaming brine.
Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You were lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine,
But, alas, I was no swimmer,
So I lost my Clementine.
i'm sitting with kate, my ex-ex, who i'm finally over. and it's nice to chat as friends and without the din of insecurity and reading-too-much-into-things in my head. the pabst tallboys keep on coming.
the guy sitting two bar stools over flashes us a bright and leering smile: "how're you gals doing tonight?" we're cheerful enough to engage in conversation with the man, whose name i learn later is floyd. he's from atlanta, but his accent is too viscous for a city boy. he luxuriates on every vowel, and stretches out over the word "ya'll" like a cat waking up after an afternoon nap in the sun. i keep my voice cautiously cold and fight the grin induced by three pabst tallboys.
it turns out floyd doesn't hit on either of us. sure, he's a southern gentleman and he whips out a lighter before i even lift a cigarette to my lips. he buys us another round. he makes frequent reference to "his girl" and engages only in sincere and interested conversation.
we talk for over an hour about cats. i show him the picture on my phone of gordon, my gentle oaf of an orange tabby. he tells me about smokey, the stray from his childhood who wandered into his family kitchen on the evening of thanksgiving and went straight into his arms. we talked about the physiology of purring, and the soul behind yellow feline eyes. "spay and neuter!" i bellow dogmatically, waiving my cigarette in his face. "you tell everybody to spay and neuter!"
what strikes me about floyd is the sincerity with which he tells stories. he pauses at length to recall childhood details. "it was cold out. i remember it was cold out when smokey came in because the door was open. the door was open and i could feel the wind blowing in." his eyes focus somewhere inside his head and he waves his arm toward him in a tender gesture of wind.
it didn't occur to me that he could have been fabricating any of these sweet details on the spot. especially not when floyd launches into a tale of tragic loss on a recent fishing trip in alaska. on the ocean in alaska with a crew of fifteen people, it's a significant loss when someone goes overboard. that's what happened one night amid a particularly wicked storm. they shouldn't have even been out at sea, and certainly not above deck. most waves were 40 knots, some 45, occasionally over 50.
apparently, a wave holds all of its power in the body. the crest is the froth and grandeur.
one of the sailors went up on deck to perform some important fisherman task, something that had to be done despite the danger of waves. his name was clementine. and he was one of the most experienced of the bunch.
nobody would have noticed the accident, except that the cook had emerged from below to haul a sack of garbage onto the deck. it happened at the moment the cook poked his neck up: a strong and sudden wave hit the ship. clementine ducked and braced against the rail when the crest enveloped him, but let go once the body rushed over, tipping the boat.
the other 14 men searched for 12 hours. it only takes five minutes to die in a cold alaska ocean. a miracle could sustain you for another hour. the hours two to twelve were spent merely searching for a body, a shoe, a token to take back to clementine's family. he was lost and gone forever, oh my darling clementine.
i recall thinking that clementine was not a very manly name for a burly fisherman, but i was enthralled in the emotion and high drama of the story and didn't pause to consider the coincidence of clementine's story's similarity to the folk song.
and it makes me wonder if floyd is less a gem of genuine emotion and more a skilled storyteller.
Drove she ducklings to the water
Ev'ry morning just at nine,
Stubbed her toe against a splinter,
Fell into the foaming brine.
Oh my darling, oh my darling,
Oh my darling, Clementine!
You were lost and gone forever
Dreadful sorry, Clementine.
Ruby lips above the water,
Blowing bubbles, soft and fine,
But, alas, I was no swimmer,
So I lost my Clementine.
posted by .i'll never tell. at 12:30 PM
1 Comments:
no, no. YOU are the skilled storyteller. great post! loved it.
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