At the Docks

We met at the docks, mainly because I had never in my life said, “Let’s meet at the docks,” and for some reason I’d really wanted to say it. So I did. I went for it. I said it. And we met at the docks. Saying it hadn’t had the transmogrifying effect I thought it might. I’d entertained the possibility—spoiler alert, I am an idiot—that saying those words would change me somehow, would render me more…something. More confident? More commanding? “Let’s meet at the docks.” It sounds so much more authoritative than, say, “Let’s meet at the Starbucks” or “How about that cozy little diner on Chestnut?” “Let’s meet at the docks” sounds as if I knew my way around a bulbous seafarer’s knot, as if the salty sea air had a kind of regenerative effect on me, as if the sight of a whale breaching was so commonplace to me that I barely took note of it. Smell that salty sea air! I find it so regenerative. What? Yeah, sure, there’s a whale breaching over yonder, so what? Now throw me a length of rope and I’ll show you a thing or two about bulbous seafarer’s knots.

Had I ever lugged around a massive anchor or rapped a wooden post with my fist and said, “That’s a sturdy fucking post”?

Probably. Why else would I have said, “Let’s meet at the docks”?

The coffee kiosk at the docks was closed for winter. It was all boarded up. That was too bad. I had been looking forward to standing on the docks with a cup of steaming hot coffee, sipping it, and going, “Ahhhhh” while gazing upon the sea, the roiling sea. The sea wasn’t even roiling that day; it was quite still. Calm as fuck. No coffee, a placid sea with nary a roil to its name. I wondered what else could go wrong.

I put my arms akimbo and gazed at the sea. “Ahhhhh,” I said.

“Your back still bothering you?” she said.

“No, it’s just…the sea,” I said.

“Why’d you want to meet at the docks anyway?” she said.

“I love the sea,” I said.

“No you don’t.”

“OK, you got me there,” I said. “But I don’t mind it. It’s kind of like butternut squash. When I’m eating, I think, ‘This is fine,’ but if I never ate it again in my life, no big deal.”

We stood in silence on the docks for what felt like several minutes. Time moves differently on the docks. On the docks, who cares of minutes, hours, days? The unit of measure of time on the docks is eons, ages, epochs. It might have something to do with the tides, with the pull of the moon, with the dampening effect of all that sand. But, again, I’m an idiot.

“This is nice,” I said.

If I told you a seagull shat upon my head at that very moment, would you believe me? Would that be too much?

“Here,” she said, handing me a moist towelette. “You’ve got bird shit all over you.”

I did, too. Boy, did I ever.