Jack Was Every Inch a Sailor
I met him one day when the tall ships docked
in the harbor. He sat by the water and played a beat
on his bucket, a soft one, sometimes, matching
the rhythm of the water. Other times louder, more
insistent. The beat of pirates at battle, of workers
on ship’s decks. I sat down by him and we sang
shanties, drink up, me hearties, yo ho, what shall
we do with a drunken sailor, then took a break
to watch the ships, the wooden hulls black against
the water, the masts and rigging trembling in
the near-tropical breeze. He was out there every
day, he said, as long as the ships stayed around.
Out there in the sun, bucket-drumming, until the
cops chased him away for unspecified crimes,
and he’d longboard home, return early in the
morning. I went back as often as I could, to sing
with him, get stoned, watch the boats. His name
was Jack. Shorn-headed white boy into soul,
ska, and reggae; always in a flat cap and black
pants torn off just below the knee, fraying. He had
bright blue eyes which I can’t describe except
to say the bright didn’t lie in their color, but
something behind them. A St. Elmo’s Fire raging
inside him. He dreamed of one day sailing on
one of those tall ships. Autumn came, then
winter, and we met at the pub, and I followed
him like a lost seadog and he the lighthouse.
Taking walks down to the water, smoking
weed, hiding from the police. Rum-drunk in
the pub, playing Clash songs on the jukebox,
picking fights with Nazi skins. My boyfriend
jealous, thinking I was in love. And I was,
but not like that. I wanted Jack to teach me
how to live in his fearless boy-body, give me
the blue fire from his eyes. For a while, we
had a rocksteady band, the two of us and two
other boys. Jack and I were the rhythm section,
he on drums and me on bass, and for a minute,
we were great. Then I moved away and we lost
touch and I didn’t see him again for a long while.
I dreamed a dream the other night, about the last
time I ever saw him. It was outside a ska show
in Chicago, Jack was nodding out on the sidewalk.
I tried to ask him what he’d been doing all those
years; he could barely speak. But he looked at me,
and I saw that all the light was gone from his
insides, his eyes gone lake-stone flat. He should
have been a drummer, boy, he should have lived
a pirate’s life. He should’ve sailed on a tall tall ship,
climbed the rigging, quick and nimble. Somehow
he sailed elsewhere, got swept into the sea
and swallowed by a whale. Little boy sucked into
the deeps, somewhere his blue fire snuffed out.
Somewhere neither I, nor anyone, could reach.
—Jessie Lynn McMains, Tupelo Press 30/30, Day 4 (April 2024)
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