The Novel: The beginning
“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation”
Henry David Thoreau
Chapter 1
The sea has long been the place of intrigue, battles, struggles and tragic death. Living close by the sea, I became aware of death at an early age. Mother ocean claimed many people close to me by the time I reached adulthood. The intrigue, battles, and struggles came later.
Monday, mid-afternoon, a sweltering late August breeze picked up from the south and induced an instant and persistent all over body sweat. The Atlantic Ocean boiled frothy white and choppy. I pointed the bow west to leave the protection of the Albemarle Sound through the Oregon Inlet at the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
Not the perfect day for a pleasure cruise but with a topless thonged tanned beauty on the bow with drink in hand, a well stocked bar and galley-- summer’s end was too close to waste the opportunity for a short day sail.
The wind whistled through the rigging, topside speakers were loud enough to be heard over the wind and waves with B.B. King trying to figure out how blue he could get.
The borrowed seventies vintage cutter-rigged sloop, the Currahee, cut well through the chop, intermittently slapping a welcome fine mist of seawater back to the cockpit. The boat was big enough to live aboard, rigged for single-handed sailing, and had all the accessories for deep blue water cruising.
The woman swaying to the music and the waves aboard was one Ms. Evangeline “Vangey” S. Whitmore Esquire, 32, thrice divorced, partner in the prestigious law firm of Martin, Whitmore, & Powell of Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Vangey was stunning and she was slumming. Sandy blonde hair cut in the severe executive 2000’s look 5’9” perfectly proportioned elegant deep tan with tan-lines that contrasted sufficiently to make one ponder if there ever was an all over tan. We were on a blind date set up by my best friend Trevor Barrow, Attorney for the damned, owner of the boat.
She yelled something back at me that I couldn’t understand and pointed due North beyond the Point at what appeared to be a dead whale with an array of tropical birds perched on it and a short object protruding up from it. It looked to be about a mile out. I adjusted my heading to intercept it. There was a slight sour smell in the gentle salty breeze.
As we got closer it appeared to be more of a floating mass, reddish-brown, with a mossy texture. It reeked of something between sewage and rotting fish. The closer we got the stronger the odor.
“Alex, is this the way you woo your dates?” Vangy asked with a twisted nose as she rejoined me in the cockpit.
“This wasn’t in the game plan, but it’s a navigational hazard for the nuts in the cigarette boats.”
Her beautiful full lips tightened and twisted into a grin, her nose turned up and she exclaimed, “ your going to protect those loud, obnoxious, stink-pot boats for the penis challenged?”
“Penis challenged, is that a legal term?”
“Longer the boat, bigger the horse power, shorter the penis.” She smiled and giggled. I liked her cute laugh. It was sexy and turned me on more than her jiggling naked breasts.
“Wow, you’re a tough crowd. I hope there isn’t a penis equation for sail boaters.”
She just laughed.
The waves were too choppy for cigarette boats today but the calmness of the protected Sound can be deceiving and the mass was too close to the inlet. I wanted to check it out and alert the Coast Guard if necessary.
As we got close the birds flew away, and what was left was bird droppings and a piece of rusty metal about 3 inches in diameter, sticking up about two feet at a slight angle. I dropped the sails, brought the boat abreast on the starboard side, pointed the bow into the chop, and put out to anchors off the bow and stern with sufficient scope to keep it in relative position. I asked Vangy to hand me the gaff hook from the front deck which she did as I lowered the dingy from the stern davits.
As I came upon the mass, the blast of stench combined with the heat and humidity started a gag reflex in my throat. I removed my bandana from around my neck and tied it over my nose and mouth. I chunked the gaff hook into the mass, tied the handle off to the dingy, and surveyed the mass. It looked like bog that you would find in the Florida Everglades, about the size and shape of a twenty-five foot boat. I swung my leg over the dinghy’s side and tested whether it would support my weight – it did.
I grabbed the protruding rusty object to steady my balance and was surprised when it slowly trembled lose. It was pretty heavy so I tried to hoist it on my shoulder to put it in the dingy. It seemed to catch on something below the surface, and as I pulled at it, there was a distinctive cracking sound and my feet submerged about a foot into the surface of the bog.
“What is it?” Vangy yelled.
“I am not sure, it looks metal and like its been submerged for a very long time.”
I took my Leatherman from its pouch on my hip, opened it to the largest knife blade and began to hack at the base of the object where it met the mass. As I cleared away what I had chopped the blade nicked the rusty object there was a glint of shiny metal, a dark yellow gold and what appeared to be gloves around the object and in the gloves . . . there were hands. Well not really hands but what was left of hands.
The sight of thia startled me so much I lost my balance and fell into the Atlantic. The coolness of the sea was actually refreshing.
I had Vangy retrieve and pitch me some scuba goggles that where in the cockpit of the boat. I was curious as to what the underside of the bog looked like and if there was a body attached to the hands. It was pretty hard to see but it looked like a scuba fin was sticking out of the bottom of the muck.
As I surfaced, Vangy asked again what it was and my mind raced as to how to answer. I decided not to answer until I got back on the Currahee. Getting into a dingy in the choppy Atlantic is a trick that has killed many a person so I skipped the trick and swam over to the Currahee and boarded via the swim ladder.
I was out of breath from the effort and the excitement.
She said “Well?”
“Well, I have a moral and ethical dilemma.” I exhaled.
“Moral and ethical dilemmas are my area of expertise, honey.”
“I didn’t think lawyers had morals or ethics.”
“Oh you’ve be reading too much liberal journalism, I am a Corporate Lawyer we set the standard.”
I figured what the hell, why sugar-coat it, she’s a lawyer. “Well I think that big hunk of metal sticking out is gold of some type and a dead body has its arms around it and is entombed in that big floating turd over there.”
“G….g…..gold, d….d…dead, t…t…turd?” She pointed in the direction of the bog.
I scratched a whelp on my brow left by an infamous Southern mosquito “Yep, I was hoping for wine, woman, and song and our date has ended up gold, dead, and turd. That about sums it up.”
“What are we going to do?” she said........
This is half of the first chapter, the beginning, I'm thinking of shit canning the whole thing. I wrote it 3 months ago and am about 80 pages into it and stuck.
Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading it.
