January 2: Too Lonely to See It, My Son, FotBKE

Santiago and the boy walk home . . . 

"Santiago," the boy said.

"Yes," the old man said. He was holding his glass and thinking of many years ago.

"Can I go out to get sardines for you for tomorrow?"

"No. Go and play baseball. I can still row and Rogelio will throw the net."

"I would like to go. If I cannot fish with you, I would like to serve in some way."

"You bought me a beer," the old man said. "You are already a man."

"How old was I when you first took me in a boat?"

"Five and you nearly were killed when I brought the fish in too green and he nearly tore the boat to pieces. Can you remember?"

"I can remember the tail slapping and banging and the thwart breaking and the noise of the clubbing. I can remember you throwing me into the bow where the wet coiled lines were and feeling the whole boat shiver and the noise of you clubbing him like chopping a tree down and the sweet blood smell all over me."

"Can you really remember that or did I just tell it to you?"

"I remember everything from when we first went together."

The old man looked at him with his sun-burned, confident loving eyes.

"If you were my boy I'd take you out and gamble," he said. "But you are your father's and your mother's and you are in a lucky boat."

"May I get the sardines? I know where I can get four baits too."

"I have mine left from today. I put them in salt in the box."

"Let me get four fresh ones."

"One," the old man said. His hope and his confidence had never gone. But now they were freshening as when the breeze rises.

"Two," the boy said.

"Two," the old man agreed. "You didn't steal them?"

"I would," the boy said. "But I bought these."

"Thank you," the old man said. He was too simple to wonder when he had attained humility. But he knew he had attained it and he knew it was not disgraceful and it carried no loss of true pride.

"Tomorrow is going to be a good day with this current," he said.

"Where are you going?" the boy asked.

"Far out to come in when the wind shifts. I want to be out before it is light."

"I'll try to get him to work far out," the boy said. "Then if you hook something truly big we can come to your aid."

"He does not like to work too far out."

"No," the boy said. "But I will see something that he cannot see such as a bird working and get him to come out after dolphin."

"Are his eyes that bad?"

"He is almost blind."

"It is strange," the old man said. "He never went turtle-ing. That is what kills the eyes."

"But you went turtle-ing for years off the Mosquito Coast and your eyes are good."

"I am a strange old man."

"But are you strong enough now for a truly big fish?"

"I think so. And there are many tricks."

"Let us take the stuff home," the boy said. "So I can get the cast net and go after the sardines."

They picked up the gear from the boat. The old man carried the mast on his shoulder and the boy carried the wooden box with the coiled, hard-braided brown lines, the gaff and the harpoon with its shaft. The box with the baits was under the stern of the skiff along with the club that was used to subdue the big fish when they were brought alongside. No one would steal from the old man but it was better to take the sail and the heavy lines home as the dew was bad for them and, though he was quite sure no local people would steal from him, the old man thought that a gaff and a harpoon were needless temptations to leave in a boat.

They walked up the road together to the old man's shack and went in through its open door. The old man leaned the mast with its wrapped sail against the wall and the boy put the box and the other gear beside it. The mast was nearly as long as the one room of the shack. The shack was made of the tough bud-shields of the royal palm which are called guano and in it there was a bed, a table, one chair, and a place on the dirt floor to cook with charcoal. On the brown walls of the flattened, overlapping leaves of the sturdy fibered guano there was a picture in color of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and another of the Virgin of Cobre. These were relics of his wife. Once there had been a tinted photograph of his wife on the wall but he had taken it down because it made him too lonely to see it and it was on the shelf in the corner under his clean shirt.

The boy loves Santiago, would do anything for him.  In these few paragraphs, you feel the closeness of their relationship.  Santiago watches out for the boy, wants him to succeed.  Never wants to hold the boy back.

This is going to be a post about my 13-year-old son.  The boy to my Santiago.  A few nights ago, I was on the couch in a COVID fog.  It was late.  I had been coughing and sneezing and feverish all day long.  My son came to me, stood six feet away, masked, and said, "I hope you feel better soon.  I love you."

My son has been through a lot these past two years.  COVID.  Depression.  Suicidal thoughts and actions.  Struggles with who he is.  The loss of his grandmother this past October.  Most adults would be raging alcoholics if they had to go through what my son's been experiencing these past 730 days.

Yet, he's come through it all.  Loving and sweet.  Writing poetry.  Caring for his sister more than she will ever know.  I'm not going to candy-coat things.  He still can be a handful at times.  Every once in a while, he'll get in his moods, just like everyone else.  He has those days where I must tread lightly as I enter his teenage boy inner sanctum.  Sometimes, he'll just stare at me until I leave.  Other times, he'll greet me like I've just returned home after serving three years overseas.

As a writer, I used to think that I wanted to be remembered by the books I've written.  The things I've published.  I wanted poems in the Norton Anthology.  Pulitzer Prizes on the wall.  A Nobel Prize on my bookshelf.  I wanted those initials after my name--"FNPW."  Famous Nobel Prize Winner.

Yet, I've come to realize that I was shooting too low.  Legacies of paper can degrade, be torn up or burned.  However, being a good father.  Being remembered as a good father.  That's going to last forever, from my kids to their kids to their kids' kids.

I've come to realize that I will be happy simply being Saint Marty, FotBKE.  Father of the Best Kids Ever.