The Sea Captain's Charge

Throughout her life, Aunt Margie kept her hair dyed a flaming red color. Her eyes were naturally blue. When I was about four or five years of age I was riding in the back of a cab with her somewhere in the Santa Clara Valley for some reason. But all I can recall of that trip was a serious and stern warning she tendered me, “Never become a lawyer or you will surely go to hell”. I subsequently made arrangements so that, if the events of this life just happen to lead me to Hades, it shan’t be for lawyering.

Aunt Margie had been in and out of public institutions for myriads of maladies and most of those involved methyl ethyl alcohol and/or prescribed pain medications. She eventually died in one such facility. Agnew’s, I believe.

My maternal grandmother, Marie was Margie’s sister. So Margie was really my mom’s aunt and my great-aunt. That side of the family was Portuguese. Latins with accents from the Azorean Islands, they were olive complected and Catholic. My father’s people were Germanic and British, of lighter coloring, non-practicing Protestants sporting Midwest accents. Somehow, my great-aunt subscribed to appear with those fairer genes.

Margie would work paring apricots, plums and peaches, at the fruit canneries near San Jose, California, as did her sisters, in the summer months, throughout the 1930’s, ‘40’s and ‘50’s. There, they spoke disparagingly about their overseers, the white people. They hoped for a day when the unions would come, opening the eyes of management, to see the intrinsic value siphoned from the lowly workers, which all the supervisors took for granted.

Margie maintained a progressive relationship with men, usually one at a time. Her married sisters would only say, “That girl…”.

One unforgettable fellow always smelled of olive oil and garlic. You knew he was Italian and not Greek because his name was Luigi. His mission was to teach Americans the correct way to make a marinara sauce. Luigi was empowered by the redness of wine.

It was about this time that Aunt Margie befriended an old merchant mariner. He called himself Captain Miller. He was conscripted and served during World War II in the Pacific. Now he subsisted on a little pension. He lied in a bed with his crutch propped against it, in a room adjacent to Margie’s apartment. But over the previous fifty years, he had sailed the seven seas and seen all their multitudinous ports. Captain Miller of the steamin’ tramps left his prior abode in the San Francisco Bay area, due to his emphysema. Frisco opened to the Santa Clara Valley on its south side where it was warmer, dryer and less foggy. So he went there. Miller though, always kept his bedside window open to catch any breezes that the bay might afford him.

He was dying. He was dying and he knew it. He was dying of cirrhosis and lung cancer. He was dying broken hearted, no longer sea worthy, unable to cast off. He smoked Lucky Strikes to relax and drank Four Roses Whiskey to self medicate. Margie brought these to him. He would always tip her and she would always accept. More often than not, she stayed to have a smoke and drink with the Captain, enjoying his seafaring stories. If he seemed to be in excess distress, she’d share one of her pills with him.

But what forever charmed her was the Captain’s foul speaking parrot. With a grand vocabulary, it was uncanny how it always seemed to choose the perfect time to lend a vulgar yet pithy comment to the conversation. The more the bird spoke, the more Margie laughed and the bird was quick to mimic her mirth, exactly. If Captain Miller became jocular, then with the parrot, the corner room resounded as if it was a speak easy.

Eventually Captain Miller grew too weak to care for the bird and asked Margie to take it. She refused. The captain passed shortly thereafter and Margie had a change of heart and so took the parrot back to her apartment. Its name was Shackles.

Margie gave the bird crackers, sunflower seeds, fruit and the occasional swatted fly. She applauded his side step dancing and acrobatics performed on his perch. Sometimes she did not gather the bird’s lurid sayings, “Blow the man down, lassie. That’s what you be good for”. But she’d laugh and Shackles would laugh too. They began to bond.

And so it happened. My mother and her sister, little Marie, with preschool me in tow were to meet Margie at Auntie’s apartment. Margie was delayed at the hair parlor and we would all go shop for something upon her return. Her instructions were to wait in the apartment but not enter her bedroom. Aunt Marie was suspicious. Was Margie keeping a man sleeping in there? Little Marie had to find out. My mother warned her sister not to. Aunt Marie said, “I’ll knock first”. And so she did. That’s when we heard it.

“Stop before you come to me. Friend or foe, claim who ye be.” Aunt Marie and mother stopped, standing still, they looked at each other and their jaws dropped.

“He must be undressed”, mother surmised. “We need to know to tell the others”, Aunt Marie said, so she carefully began to open the bedroom door. Suddenly, the door flew open in a barrage of wind and flapping.

“You bare no treats. My peace you wreck. Is it tricks you want? It’s tricks you get”.

The thing fluttered to the floor. The wing knuckles extended out and the wing tips were tucked beneath its tail and it took on the shape of a triangle. It lumbered one claw at a time and appeared to crawl. All green, its head rose up, exposing its craggy beak and demon eyes. Smelling of smoke, it wailed, “Throw the pot out. Brrawk! Throw the pot OUT!!” Its voice began to quiver. It was alive but what was it, I wondered. We were up on chairs. “Mama, what is that?” I cried to her.

The green thing made known its displeasure, mumbling expletives.

“Marie”, mother urged. “Next to you behind the door, get the broom”. Aunt Marie began to step down from the chair. The green thing extended his beak and lunged for her foot. She shrieked and jumped back up. “You get it”.

“Avast, Mateys! Come hither. Throw the pot out…”

“I’ve got to pee”, said Marie.

"Through the pot out!"

I wanted to throw up.

“Brrawk!”

The front door opened and Margie entered. “Shackles, what are they doing to you?”

It flew to her extended wrist. They kissed and she returned it to her bedroom.

“You girls can’t take simple instruction, but pester that poor creature. It’s like you’re still children yourselves. I will tell your mother”.

I think we all still went with Aunt Margie to the pharmacy.

copyright 2011

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"The men of our American Merchant Marine have pushed through despite the perils of the submarine, the dive bomber and the surface raider. They have returned voluntarily to their jobs at sea again and again, because they realized that the life-lines to our battle fronts would be broken if they did not carry out their vital part in this global war. . . In their hands, our vital supply lines are expanding. Their skill and determination will keep open the highway to victory and unconditional surrender. "
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1943