I still don’t know why I agreed to it, I mean it’s not like I gotta prove anything to these guys, not for a while now, but I did it anyway.

See me and some of the guys were havin’ a little celebration, a friend of mine had just come home after a stay at the Big House so we threw him a little party. It was the usual kind of thing, gettin’ him the stuff he couldn’t have in the can; cigars, booze, broads, you get the picture…. Anyway, as it got later he starts to get a little emotional, says this is all great but he realised when he was away that the world seems a little confined, he felt restricted.

“No shit!” I said to him, “you’ve been locked up, that’s the whole fuckin’ point”.

But that’s not what he meant. He starts sayin’ how he’s only ever lived in the city, how the buildings, the subway, everything makes him feel hemmed in, he needs to get out in to some space. I’m thinkin’ this guys is about to tell us he’s movin’ to Montana and gonna try his luck at being a cowboy or somethin’, I’m gettin’ ready to piss my pants laughing at him when his nephew, who was with us, says “why don’t we go for a trip out on a boat?”.

A fuckin’ boat. I hate boats. I seen enough of those things when I worked the docks to last me a lifetime. Why would anyone want to get on one when there’s a good firm piece of land under your feet? You can’t sink on land.

“Yeah, I know a guy who’s got a big boat down in Jersey” says the nephew, “he don’t get it out much these days, can’t afford to, but I’m sure he’ll rent it to us, we could take it out and do some fishing, it don’t get no more open than that! The girls could come too, maybe sunbathe a bit?”

Sunbathe in April…. Yeah, sure.

I said I wasn’t sure, I got a lot on, I can’t afford the time. That’s when they started breaking my balls, asking if I get seasick, asking if the fish scare me, saying I’ll probably only catch a cold and if I manage to get a fish they’ll take it off the hook for me. In front of the girls. So yeah, I do know why I agreed to it after all.

Anyway, the kid says this boat is like some kind of ocean liner, huge, steady, it sounds like some kind of gin palace, we gotta pay the guy and bring our own fuel for the motor. The kid’s gonna organise the fuel, and I can see my friend really likes the idea, and he’s a stand-up guy, so, OK, I’ll pay for the boat. But you guys need to take care of the fishing gear. That’s settled.

A few days later we headed down to Jersey, I don’t even know where the harbour was but I’m looking for this ocean-going gin palace and I’m not seein’ it. There’s plenty of small things with masts, but nothin’ as big as I’m expecting. We meet the guy who owns the boat and he leads us down this jetty to some tub. OK, maybe I’m exaggeratin’ a little, it’s not tiny, it’s 53 foot, at least that’s what he said, but it’s pretty basic. There’s a wheelhouse up top and some space below deck with a galley and a lounge area, but this is not what I’d been expectin’ to see. But screw it, I was here now, it will be worse if I walk away, and someone will take it too far with breakin’ my balls, and that will end badly, I don’t need that right now.

So we load up the fishing gear, the fuel, the food and drink and we head out. This thing is chugging away and the engine sounds like it’s having a tough time, but I feel like I’m the only one who notices, and we’re making progress so maybe I’m wrong. It’s a beautiful morning, the sky is clear and bright, the sea is calm, a light breeze is coming from the shore behind us and blowing my hair around which gives ones of the girls reason to giggle and try to straighten it flirtatiously, maybe this wouldn’t be such a bad day after all?

I don’t know how far we got from the shore, a couple of miles, maybe three? We could still see the harbour clearly but we were the only boat leaving. That’s probably no big deal, the economy meant that by and large people who owned boats couldn’t afford to run them much at the moment and besides, I was starting to enjoy myself, it WAS good to get out of the city, this was shaping up to be a good day, and my friend was already relaxing and savouring the feeling of freedom, this would be good for him before he gets back to earning.

I thought we’d go a little further but the skipper decided we’d gone far enough and he cut the engine to an idle. “Time to fish for your supper” he announced and a great cheer went round as the fishing gear came out and lines were baited. I made my way down the side of the boat sitting next to my buddy and we leisurely cast out our lines. I passed him a cigar and we sat and smoked in silence for a few minutes, not caring whether we caught anything or not, just enjoying the moment.

“So, what are your plans now?” I asked, “Ready to get back in the saddle?”

I smiled to myself, remembering my cowboy thought from a few days earlier.

“Yeah, I guess so, but I don’t think I can do too much heavy work, not yet anyway, you got anything I can help with?”

“Let’s talk about it tomorrow. Come by the warehouse in the afternoon, I’ll have something to fix you up with, get you back on your feet”.

“Thanks Eggs, I owe you”.

“Let’s talk about that tomorrow too”.

And that was the end of the business for the day. We had to get on with the business of enjoying ourselves. And we did pretty good at that for a few hours, I even started toying with the notion of getting a boat of my own. Maybe I was wrong about these things?

Then the wind started.

It was pretty slow at first, we’d all gotten used to the breeze so it was barely noticeable that it had become stronger, when we really noticed was went the boat started to roll a little. Then it started to move around a lot. One of the guys was sick as a dog already and everywhere I looked faces were becoming pale. “Time to head back” announced the skipper as he went around making sure all the fishing gear was in.

Our progress was slow, the motor sounded like it was having a harder time than on our way out. Then it started skipping.

“It’s a diesel” says the kid, “I’m not surprised”.

I didn’t think that was right. See the thing with a diesel engine is it runs and runs and runs. You get problems if the engine isn’t given a little attention every now and then, and it looked like this one had been neglected for a while.

“Tide’s turned” said the skipper, “we’re fighting against it and with the swell too it may take us a while to get back in, the engine lost a cylinder last time I took her out and I haven’t been able to fix it, that’s going to make it harder”.

That explained why the engine sounded rough on our way out, and with that thought another cylinder went.

We seemed to be moving very slowly, barely making headway at all, the engine with two cylinders out could only just hold it’s own against the retreating tide. By now at least half of our merry crew looked green, and the other half were trying to hold it together, it was going to be a very long trip for them.

It took three hours to get back to land. I held on to my lunch for about the first hour and a half. The less said about that the better. The last hour wasn’t as bad as the first two and by the time we tied the boat up most of us had recovered some.

Six guys with six dolls got off that boat, cold, soaked to the skin, and vowing to avoid the ocean for the foreseeable future. We even left the fishing gear on the boat!

“See you tomorrow afternoon then?” says my buddy.

“Yeah, tomorrow afternoon” I said, “but one thing……. we stay in the city for a while”

“Deal”.