Another Lie, but this one is piscatorial

A fish flashing silver hangs improbably in midair, at least momentarily. What?

Two days on the train from Wilmington, Delaware have left me dog tired. I am beyond dog tired. My mind is at that point where while I am still on the mental rails I can see not far off to the side the space that lies between sanity and a mental breakdown.

Laying out on the bow of this boat is just the ticket. Face up toward the sky I want nothing more than to be empty, to sleep the deep sleep of justification. The sun is warm on my skin when we pass from beneath the large over hanging trees into sunlight.

My wife to be and one of her soon to be bride’s maids picked me up at the Amtrak Depot in Swampville Florida about an hour and a half ago. From there we drove down to the boat slip on the river.

Did I mention I hate being confined in an airplane so whenever I can I take a train? My train’s arrival was seven almost eight hours after its listed and posted ETA. Scotch whiskey is a good adjunct to an American rail trip to ease the uncertainties of such travel but my bottle ran out about four hours before we actually got in. The ride on the Palmetto was rough and only conversation with my fellow neurotic travelers made it bearable.

Moving slow so as not to hit any manatees this beautiful boat has been working its way up the St. John’s River. I have wanted nothing more than to just pass out here on the warm deck of the bow. Laying here on the skin of this piece of consumer excess touched by the sun’s warmth I could easily be gone into a sleepy reverie.

Everyone else on the boat is in a celebratory mood. My wedding is four days away and the good times have begun. Lonesome George Thoregood is blasting out and vodka and tonic glasses are tinkling from the ice. I am ready for the fermented potato bliss to kick me off into la-la land.

Suddenly and clearly unexpectedly a fish is passing above me. It is a good ten feet out of the water. Dorsal fins, shimmering scales, flat eyes, the whole works; it rockets above me. Am I hallucinating from sleep deprivation, I mean that was just vodka and tonic wasn’t it? Just as quick as it has appeared it is gone from my vision. Fuck it; either it was or it wasn’t real but that doesn’t matter much now at this stage of my descent into the total oblivion of exhaustion.

There are screams.

There is a commotion.

There is a man’s hearty almost wild laughter. The chiropractor who is living with the bride’s maid and who owns this beauty of a boat is almost convulsing with howls of laughter as he looks over his shoulder while steering the boat.. I roll my head from its previously fixed skyward stare and look into the back of the boat. What I see is a spectacle unfolding. One twelve inch long fish is flopping wildly about. Also flopping, and about as wildly, are four naked breasts. Two breasts belong to each of the two women who had brought me to this boat and who are now just commencing to scream like little girls.

The fish was clearly and evidently real. So were the breasts. Apparently after we had commenced our journey, both my wife to be and her friend had decided to sun bath on the back of the boat. Lying on towels they had unhooked the tops of their bikinis. The fish for whatever reason had decided to jump and become airborne just as our boat approached. Clearing me, clearing the windscreen and the fore cabin the critter had slapped its slimy carcass down directly onto my wife’s back. Realizing it was not in Kansas anymore the fish lurched and jumped again landed on the back of the bride’s maid slithering this way and that. Not knowing what the fuck was going on and somewhat shocked the ladies committed to a course of jumping up in semi-undress and engaging in what approximated total pandemonium.

It will be five minutes before they are dressed and calmed down again. Thank God the fish continued its path over the back of the boat and back into the water or the males on board would have had to bludgeon it to death.

It isn’t the breasts that make this scene a classic memory. By this point in life I can draw my wife’s breasts on a sheet of paper from memory. As to the maid of honor, one more vodka and tonic and an encounter at her boyfriend’s hot tub and I probably would have gotten a shot of much more that her firm large boobies. It wasn’t the fish either. What made the scene memorable was that while I was in the fog of sleep deprivations I observed the impact of the absurd on people far more solidly grounded in the real world than I was at the time. I was barely hanging on to consciousness and they were dancing a mad dance of piscatorial origin. Life comes at you that way sometimes.