56 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
56 lines
2.6 KiB
Plaintext
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LUFFING
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by Ron Fleshman
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Near the edge of the chart, I see that my course was not random
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but zigzag: now with the wind, now against. Through the long glass
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of hindsight, I am aware that many of my decisions to come about
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were not as independent as I had thought but were influenced by
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another person.
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I remember most of them but some more than others, and Al was
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one of these. He was squat with a thick neck, mud brown hair and a
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face like a broken fist. At 19, I didn't think about another guy's
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appearance but looking back now, I realize that Al was an ugly monkey
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by any standard.
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We were sailors drinking warm beer at a sidewalk cafe ten minutes
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from Nice. The Mediterranean, the vacant cobalt sky, the pastel tinted
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houses snugged into the hills, the warm French sun -- all of it a
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grand picture postcard.
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A family came and sat at the largest table. A father, mother, two
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little boys, and a beautiful woman of perhaps 17, perhaps 18. Oh. Every
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woman is beautiful at that age, and possibly Frenchwomen are even more
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beautiful. This one was. Forever.
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I stared. Al moved. He said "See you back at the ship" and he got up
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and he went to the big table and he smiled at the father and he smiled
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at the mother and he waved his hands and he smiled some more and he kept
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waving his hands and smiling -- and the father motioned for him to sit
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and Al pulled up a chair and he sat down right next to the beautiful
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young woman. Just like that.
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He knew less pidgin French than I did: enough to order a beer or
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a plate of steak and eggs, enough to find a brothel. The family would
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dismiss him surely. Surely, they did not.
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The next day when Al returned to the ship I asked about her. He
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smiled. I asked if she spoke English and he said, smiling, "I am
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teaching her." And he did.
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My course changed then though I did not have true heading until four
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years later, in another postcard country on another sunny afternoon,
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when I vaulted a stone wall and ran after a beautiful young woman. She
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was much too fine, so I married her. Al would have smiled.
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# # #
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Copyright 1994 Ron Fleshman
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Ron Fleshman is a retired Navy Chief (Destroyerman) and, for thirty-
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five years, the happy companion to the former Tamara Miron of Tel Aviv.
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Ron's writing has appeared in various publications, including HUSTLER,
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MODERN SHORT STORIES, ESPIONAGE, and WRITER'S DIGEST.
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======================================================================
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